Chapter Five

Summary:

Despite their imprisonment and affliction, the Jews of Buna come together to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, praying together and praising God's name. On this solemn Jewish holiday, Eliezer's belief in God slackens, and he cannot find a reason to bless God in the midst of so much suffering. Eliezer mocks the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people, deciding that they have only been chosen to be massacred.

When Eliezer returns from work, it seems to him that there has been a miracle. A second selection occurred among the condemned, and Eliezer's father survived. With the arrival of winter, the prisoners begin to suffer in the cold. Eliezer's foot swells up, and he undergoes an operation. While he is in the hospital recovering, the rumor of the approaching Russian army gives him new hope.

But the Germans decide to evacuate the camp before the Russians can arrive. Thinking that the Jews in the infirmary will be put to death prior to the evacuation, Eliezer and his father choose to be evacuated with the others. After the war, Eliezer learns that they made the wrong decision—those who remained in the infirmary were freed by the Russians a few days later. With his injured foot bleeding into the snow, Eliezer joins the rest of the prisoners. At nightfall, in the middle of a snowstorm, they begin their evacuation of Buna.

Quote:

""For the liberating army, he told us. "let them know that here lived men and not pigs."

So we were men after all? The block was cleaned from top to bottom." 

Blackest

-pg.84

Reaction:

This command of the Blockaste was hypocritical. the next paragraph Elie to notices and wonders, what they were, if they were still men. He has been shook with doubt in God during his time in Buna, along with most every other inmate, all debating the Whys, Hows and What Fors of their situation. Also discussing whether of not to fast during Yom Kippur for instance, most, if not all, decide to eat, how would they survive anyway? 

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In this section  Elie visits the infirmary, he is lucky to have a jewish doctor, some were not so lucky. their were Nazi doctors during the Holocaust, whom in fiction would be called "mad" or "evil" scientist. thy performed terrible experimentation on the Jews, some which wouldn't be humane on the lowest animal. This site give the list of such "experiments": 

Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine