Pg. 97-end

Elie was close to losing his father on the train ride over. Elie forced his father, who in turn forced himself to come back from his unconsciousness. Even now, the Jews treat their own people as the Nazis do. They "Grabbed him by the head and feet and threw him from the wagon, like a sack of flour." These were Jewish volunteers!! They receive no food as they live off the snow. The Germans throw bread at them only to watch the spectacles unfold around them.

Now Elie watches his father losing strength and life. He wines for help and food, but can no longer help himself. No doctors help and he becomes worse and worse. He is also reminded of the survival of the fittest in concentration camps, but he still helps his father. When his father did pass due to the beating of guards, Elie can not weep at all. He can only think to himself "I'm free".

It is horrible to see the transformation of the Jews during this time. They treat each other with no respect, ignoring the community. A son kills his father for a crumb of bread, and it only gets worse. The Blockalteste reminds Elie "Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Each of us lives and dies alone." Even though this goes completely against Jewish belief, the Jews act like this. They refuse to be another statistic for future people to see.

pg. 86-97

The death march begins and the German captors let the Jews know that the weak will not survive. If anyone pauses for a second, they are shot down on the spot. Elie must continue running even with his wounded foot. Fear is the only thing that drives most of the Jews. Elie lives for his father, and his father lives for him (that is what drives them to stay alive). Elie must see one of his friends leave after he gets a stomach cramp is forced to stop.

Eventually they are able to stop and rest. Elie and his father take turns watching each other as they rest in the snow because "It's dangerous to fall asleep in snow. One falls asleep forever." Once more they are forced to march again, however even the Nazis begin to slow down. They don't even send out threats anymore. They eventually made it to Geiwitz, which they were kept hostage without food or drink for three days. After this the Germans made another selection, which Elie and his father snuck through, and they were sent on the way in cattle cars.

Up to this point in the book, the treatment of the Jews in this chapter didn't surprise me. It is scary to think how just hearing about the treatment in the book can harden a person's emotions toward the Nazis. I can only imagine how the Jews who actually went through it felt. It is sad to see the transformation of a friendly people to cold, people without emotion.

Pg. 66- 85

What an awful way to spend the Jewish New Year. It says ''On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the last day of that cursed year, the entire camp was agitated and everyone of us felt the tension." During the pray Elie can't help but curse at God for what his people are going through. He refuses to say the prayer at first but reluctantly prays near the end. He can only wonder how other biblical stories had God save those oppressed. But now, they are alone, seperated from God.

"The SS offered us a beautiful present for the new year." After making it through all of that oppression, the Jews couldn't help but speak in that kind of cold sarcasm. Today they would have an examination of the prisoners and decide which ones were unfit to do work. Elie's father was one of those victims. But in the end, he passed the second selection and managed to stay alive. After hard work throughout the months, Elie goes to the infirmary and gets his foot operated on. Now he will be able to try it out on one of the death marches due to the approaching Red Army.

I probably wouldn't have been able to say that prayer either to God. It seems there is no God with them during that time. Also, it takes courage to be able to watch your father be selected like that. Even though he did make it through, it seems nerve racking to go through life after that. How could anyone survive through all of this? And if you become sick, it would not be wise to show off the luxurious of the infirmary.

Pg. 47-65

Elie and his other companions have been moved to Buna, which is a far better predicament than Auschwitz. the inmates agree on this saying "Buna is a very good camp. One can hold one's own here." And they were right, the work was far more easier at Buna than at the previous camps. The time in the camps has affected everyone in everywhere. When Elie was forced to get the gold crown out of his mouth, he had enough courage to extend the time limit. I do not believe he would have done something like this in Auschwitz.

Elie has been fortunate enough to be able to stay with his father throughout all of this. Even Elie says he is lucky through all of this. The Germans at this camp seem to be a little nicer than those from other camps. But only a little. They still do things that benefit them and hurt the prisoners at the same time.

It is amazing how people could with stand all this stuff that is happening. Elie got 25 lashes for laughing at one of the Germans in charge for his selfishness. But he takes with strength and stays strong. The same goes for those condemned to death in the camp. Each stayed strong in front of their companions. YOu do not want to show weakness to these people.

Pg. 29-46

Elie and his father have successfully made it through the first part of their stay in Auschwitz, which is making sure he looks useful. No longer do you hear of optimism from the group and a few days in the camp, Elie has already become less humane. The first thing he saw was corpses of young children being thrown into fires and after seeing that he becomes far more emotionless.

The people are losing track of time. They do jobs all day for their captors and simply try to stay alive during all of this. They meet a relative from Antwerp named Stein. Elie told him that his family was fine to make him feel better. After this, Stein watched over him and gave him some of his portions to keep him alive. When an transport from Antwerp comes though, Stein hears the real news and is never seen from again.

This is awful treatment and demoralizing for the Jews undergoing these kinds of conditions. This is probably one reason the Germans did this. No one in their right minds could do this kind of stuff to another human. The germans would try and Dehumanize them. Then they weren't killing humans. This was probably the only way they could do such crimes. Even through all of this they still have faith in God. Akiba Drumer says "God is testing us. He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming our base instincts, of killing the Satan within ourselves." (pg. 45) This shows strong faith.

Pg. 23-28

It is sad to hear the poor conditions for the Jews who had to travel in the cattle cars. Elie says "Lying down was not an option, nor could we all sit down. We decided to take turns sitting. THere was little air." I know I could not take it sitting in close quarters with little air. And worse, this trip lasted two days. At the end of the trip was when the optimists realized there was nothing to look forward to at the end of the trip. he says "Our eyes opened. Too late." pg. 23

Elie met a certain woman during his journey named Mrs. Schachter. The separation of her from her husband and sons had totally shattered. Throughout the journey she began crying at "Fire! I see a fire! I see a fire!" At first, everyone thought she had gone crazy like Moishe. After awhile, I believed that she something that the others did not like Moishe.

After stopping at Auschwitz to refuel, the convoy began to move again and reached Birkenau. By that time Mrs. Schacther once again urged her fellow companions to "Look at the fire! Look at the flames!" This time, they did see the flames rising from a large chimney nearby. Elie describes the exit from the train like this. "In front of us, those flames. In the air, the smell of burning flesh." Now the others could fully comprehend Mrs. Schacther. I think that she must have known ahead of time on what would happen to her fellow Jews. This is probably where optimism was swept away from everyone.

Pg. 3-22

At first the Jews of Sighat thought they were lucky and would not be caught by the Germans. Eventually, the Germans came but as nice guests who would be kind to their hosts. Soon after though, the Germans took control over the town and started moving the Jews out. How come they felt blind sided?

The Jews of Sighat were way too optimistic on what was happening. They fell for every trick the Germans played, ignored obvious signs, and are eventually deported. The only one who truly knew what was going on was Moishe the Beadle and he brought pessimistic news so he was not listened to. This is what Wiesel talked about in the preface.

He said that "We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that everyone of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekinah's flame; that everyone of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God's image. That was the source if not the cause of all our ordeals." He also blamed the Jews' optimism in everyone and thing.

Pages vii - xxi (Preface and Forward)

In the first few sentences, I can tell that he is going to tell me everything he saw during the Holocaust. He talks about different things that help to influence this story. One example is the fact that he is still alive to tell the tale. It seems like he will speak the whole truth on his story.

One thing that I don't understand is why he keeps out certain things from this copy of the story. He talks about all these things that are missing, but keeps them out due to random excuses. They were pretty interesting and made it more realistic. The first part he talks about brings us into his mindset.

"In the beginning there was faith- which is childish; trust- which is vain; and illusion- which is dangerous. We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that everyone of us had been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekhinah's flame; that everyone of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God's image. That was the source if not the cause of all our ordeals."

His memories also show that he still must relive the past through his nightmares. The one that is the worst has to be the death of his father. He was to scared to answer to his father's request and he regrets it forever. The memories are probably the worst part of WWII, like in Saving Private Ryan.