Chapter Nine

In chapter nine, Elie stays at Buchenwald for a couple more months, and after awhile he says that during the months after his father died, nothing mattered to him. Meanwhile, the Allies are approaching and it seems like the Germans will keep their promise to destroy the world of Jews. The SS officers start to evacuate the camp and move many prisoners out everyday. After all prisoners are out, the camp will be blown up, but Elie and some of the others in the camp are lucky and finally catch a break when an underground resistance movement in the camp gains control.

Later that night, American tanks are right outside of Buchenwald. The first thing everyone does once they are free is eat, eat A LOT. But Elie gets food poisoning and spends a few weeks recovering in the hospital, almost dying. Once he is better, he looks at himself in the mirror, and he looks like a corpse. This vision of himself has stayed with him forever. The final chapter of this book was very meaningful, it shows how you need a lot of luck to survive in concentration camps and get out. But it also shows the post-traumatic stresses and awful things that these people go through even after they get out of the camp.

Chapter Eight

In chapter eight, once Elie and his father are at Buchenwald, they try to go take a hot shower, but there are alot of prisoners crowding the baths. His father says he’s tired, so he lays in the snow and tells Elie to wake him when it’s their turn, but Elie doesnt let his father rest because the ground is covered in corpses who died by lying down like his father. Then, they are sent to sleep, but when Elie wakes up, he realizes he lost his dad. For a moment Elie wishes his father was dead so he would only have to care for himself, but then he feels bad about it and starts searching for his dad. While searching he stops and prays that he wont find his dad, but he feels bad, and starts searching again. He finally finds his father where they are giving out coffee, but he’s burning with fever and wants some coffee.

 Elie brings him some coffee and later gives him some of his soup. Elie keeps him alive for days, but his father has dysentery. Elie no longer thinks his dad will survive. He takes his father to the doctor, but is turned down because the doctor is a surgeon who is not concerned with dysentery. Later, the men in the bunk next door hit Elie’s dad when Elie is out. So he tries threatening them, and even promises them soup and bread if they leave his dad alone, but they laugh at him. The block leader tells Elie he should stop taking care of his father because its every man for themselves in the concentration camps, but he feels guilty for considering this. Then an SS officer hears Elie’s father moaning, and the SS delivers a blow to his head. Elie stays awake with his dying father for a while but eventually, goes to bed. In the morning, Elie's father’s body is gone, and Elie hopes that his father wasn’t taken to the crematorium before he was dead. Elie cannot cry, which disturbs him, but he knows that that deep down he feels free at last. This chapter is particularly sad, with the death of Elie's father. It shows how easily someone can die and be taken from you at these concentration camps.

Heres a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9jSzB-C5fOw

Chapter Seven

In chapter 7, the prisoners are crammed together in the train car. Then the train stops and the SS officers make the prisoners throw the dead bodies off the train.  Elie’s father, who looks like hes dead, is almost thrown out, but Elie manages to revive him in time. There is no food, but there is snow. They travel for ten days, sometimes going through German villages. A German worker by the train tracks throws some bread into the train car, and watches as the men fight each other for the bread. One boy kills his own father for a piece of bread. The German workers are amused, so they start tossing more bread into the train. At night, somebody tries to strangle Elie, but the man in charge of the wagon, who who is a friend of Elie's dad, Meir Katz, manages to save him.

 On the last day of this journey, an icy wind blows through, it seems like nobody can possibly survive, and when somebody cries out as they die, everybody starts to cry. The train finally arrives at Buchenwald, one hundred prisoners had gotten on the train, and only a dozen prisoners get off, including Elie and his father. This chapter shows how desperate the Jews really got after all they had to go through, it also shows the horrible suffering the Jews had to go through.

http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/eliewiesel.aspx

Chapter Six

In chapter 6, the prisoners are forced to run away from their camp through the snow and anyone who cant keep up is killed by the SS guards. Elie's friend Zalman gets a stomach cramp, slows down, then falls and gets trampled by all the other running prisoners. After running for a few hours, the prisoners are finally ordered to rest. Elie and his father find a shed to stay warm in, but they wont fall asleep because they know that if they do, they will surely die. People are dying all around them. Bodies are laying all over the snow. Later on, Rabbi Eliahu asks him where his son has gone, but Elie says he doesn't know. However, Elie remembers that he saw the man's son fall and die on the long run. He prays that he will never be that cruel to his own father. 

Next, all the prisoners march to a Gleiwitz, anither camp where there is a selection, and Elie brings his father, who did not pass, onto the side that passed. Then they leave and wait for another train which they are pushed on. This chapter was very sad, it showed the horrible things that the prisoners had to go through and how easily they could have died. 

Chapter Five

In this chapter, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippour, are both celebrated in Buna, but Elie can't find a reason for celebrating God. He feels like God has abandoned the Jews. Elie is starting to think that he is the only Jew that thinks man is stronger than God. On Yom Kippour, which is a day in which Jews usually fast, Elie ate because he knew he could not afford to fast because he needed to keep up is strength  but also to mock God. Then, Elie and his father are separated. They learn that there will be a selection coming up soon.

 Elie passes the selection and so does his dad (initially), but later a list of those selected for death is released, and Elie's father is on the list. But just as his dad was about to be executed, another selection occurred and his father passed and was saved. After the second selection, many people began to become less faithful. During the winter, Elie's foot begins to swell up, so he has to get surgery, but people start to hear that the Russians are closing in, so Elie and his Father decide to leave the hospital and go to evacuate with the others. This was a bad decision, because the Russians liberated the hospital just two day after he left. Then, at night, during the middle of a snowstorm, they begin to evacuate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Donadio-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Chapter Four

In chapter 4 the dentists have to check all the Jews in Buna for gold crowns on their teeth, and Elie has his gold crown removed. He fakes being sick, but he discovers that the dentist is hanged. Elies only focus is to eat and try his best to stay alive. He is beaten very badly by his kapo, Idek, and is comforted by a French worker. The prison foreman, Franek, notices that Elie still has his gold crown and he demands it, but Elie refuses. Then Franek beats Elies father so he gives up the crown. Elie catches Idek having sex with a Polish girl. Idek whips him and warns him not to say anyhing or else he will pay the consequences and be severely punished.

 During an air raid two containers of soup are left unattended, so a prisoner crawls to them but is shot right before eating some. The Nazis hang three prisoners at camp, the last one was a boy loved by all, so this causes most of  the prisoners to cry. This chapter reall shows the desperartion of the prisoners to stay alive, like the man trying to steal soup. It also shows how brutal the camps could be and how prisoners were beaten so much.

Chapter Three

In chapter 3, Elie is separated from his sister and mother when the men and women are all separated when they arrive at Birkenau. Elie is told by a man in the camp to adjust his age to 18 instead of 15 and Elie's father to to say he is 40 rather then 50 so they could remain alive for as long as they could. Then, they start to walk in line towards the crematorium where they become very scared, but they go somewhere else just before they get to it. Next they all have their heads shaved and they are striped of their old clothes and then given a prison uniform. Then Elie's father is beaten, but Elie does nothing about it. They make a march from Birkneau to Auschwitz.

Where they stay for awhile and their numbers are tattooed on them. Finally, they go on one more march from Auschwitz to Buna, a work camp. There is so much trauma that goes on in this chapter, its terrible. Its really upsetting that Elie has already been separated from his sister and mother. Elies trust in God really decreased in this chapter, he feels abandoned by God. I cant help to think of how he will end up making it out alive.

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/265616-la-nuit