night
...e her by beating and gagging her, but she nevertheless screams repeatedly throughout the night. Finally, when the train arrives at Birkenau/Auschwitz, the prisoners see the flaming chimney that Madame Schaechter had prophesied. Upon arriving at Birkenau, Eliezer is separated from his mother and sister, but manages to stay close to his father. The prisoners then march past SS officer Dr. Mengele, who "selects" who will live and who will go to the crematory. Eliezer and his father are told they are going to the crematory and are filled with terror as they march closer and closer to a fiery pit. At the last minute, the line of men turns away from the flames. The prisoners are then forced to strip, run, bathe, and redress, all the while being pummeled by veteran prisoners and SS guards. Eliezer and his father are taken to the gypsies' camp, where they are harangued by an SS officer. The prisoners then march to Auschwitz. At Auschwitz conditions are better and the fellow prisoners not as brutal. Finally, the prisoners are allowed to sleep. Eliezer refuses to eat his first ration, a plate of thick soup, but the day is much better, with people sitting and talking with each other in the sun. For several weeks the prisoners follow a tight schedule of meals, roll call, and bed. At the camp Eliezer and his father meet a distant relative, Stein of Antwerp, who is seeking news about his family. Eliezer lies to him, telling him that his family is well, and the man retains his will to live until he finds out the truth. The prisoners are then transferred to Buna. At Buna Eliezer is placed in a good work unit, the musician's block. All he has to do is work in a warehouse counting electrical fittings. He meets a Polish violin player named Juliek and also befriends two Czech brothers named Yossi and Tibi. The foreman Franek gets Eliezer's father placed in the same block also. Eliezer is summoned to the dentist to get his gold crown removed, but he feigns illness twice and manages to keep it for awhile. However, Franek beats his Eliezer's father until Eliezer gives the crown to him in exchange for some extra food. One day the Kapo (head of the block) Idek flies into a violent rage and beats Eliezer. A young French girl passing as Aryan comforts him in German. Many years later, Eliezer meets this woman in Paris, and she confesses that she is Jewish and never spoke German in the concentration camp except to him. Another day Eliezer accidentally walks in on Idek having sex with a young Polish girl. He laughs out loud, and Idek punishes him by having him publicly lashed twenty-five times. On a Sunday, an air-raid siren goes off, and the prisoners are locked down. They regain hope that Germany will soon be defeated. Two cauldrons of soup are accidentally left out, and one starving man crawls over to them and dies with his face in the soup. The SS begins having public hangings during roll call. Eliezer is disturbed by the first execution, although the man condemned to death is calm and unafraid. Afterwards, all the prisoners are required to march past his hanging body. The only time that the prisoners weep at a hanging was when a young child, "a sad-eyed angel," is hanged for conspiring to blow up the electric power station. The entire group of prisoners cries, and a man standing behind Eliezer wonders out loud where God is. Eliezer refuses to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Though he does not doubt God's existence, he does question his justice, and he accuses him for the existence of concentration camps. Eliezer's father does not want to observe the religious holidays either, although most of the other prisoners do. The SS holds a selection for the crematories right after the new year. Dr. Mengele holds judgment once again, and Eliezer runs as fast as possible past him. He passes, but his father does not. Luckily, however, his father convinces the SS officers that he is still strong enough to live and escapes death. Akiba Drumer, formerly a devout religious mystic, loses his faith and his will to live, and he goes to the crematory. During winter Eliezer's foot swells up from the cold, and he has to go to the hospital to get an operation. A bedmate warns him to escape the hospital before the next selection because all the invalids will be taken to the crematory. The doctor for Eliezer's operation is kindly, and although Eliezer panics that his leg has been amputated, tells him that he will be able to walk in a fortnight. Soon, however, the camp is to be evacuated because the Russian army is approaching. Eliezer and his father decide to be evacuated with the rest of the prisoners, instead of remaining behind in the hospital. The prisoners are forced to run for more than forty-two miles without resting. Guards shoot those who fall behind, and others are trampled underfoot by the crowd behind them. When they are finally allowed to rest, Eliezer and his father have to keep each other from falling asleep and dying in the snow. A man named Rabbi Eliahou comes around looking for his son, who he was separated from during the run. Eliezer realizes that the man's son had purposely run away from his burdensome, weak father, and he prays to God for strength not to behave as callously towards his own father. When they reach Gleiwitz, the prisoners are so crowded into barracks that people are piled on top of each other. Eliezer fin...