Chapters 8 & 9

Summary

 

The journey to Buchenwald has fatally weakened Eliezer's father. On arrival, he sits in the snow and refuses to move. He seems at last to have given in to death. Eliezer tries to convince him to move, but he will not or cannot, asking only to be allowed to rest. Eliezer leaves his father and falls deeply asleep. In the morning, he begins to search for his father, but halfheartedly. Part of him thinks that he will be better off if he abandons his father and conserves his strength. Almost accidentally, however, he finds his father, who is very sick and unable to move. Eliezer brings him soup and coffee. Again, however, Eliezer feels deep guilt, because part of him would rather keep the food for himself, to increase his own chance of survival.Instead, he feels relief.

Eliezer tries to find medical, but the doctors will not treat the old man. The prisoners whose beds surround Eliezer's father's bed steal his food and beat him. Eliezer, unable to resist his father's cries for help, gives him water. After a week, Eliezer is approached by the head of the block, who tells him what he already knows—that Eliezer's father is dying, and that Eliezer should concentrate his energy on his own survival. The next time the SS patrol the barracks, Eliezer's father again cries for water, and the SS officer, screaming at Eliezer's father to shut up, beats him in the head with his truncheon. The next morning, January 29, 1945, Eliezer wakes up to find that his father has been taken to the crematory. To his deep shame, he does not cry. Instead, he feels relief.

 

Eliezer remains in Buchenwald, thinking neither of liberation neither of his family, but only of food. On April 5, with the American army approaching, the Nazis decide to annihilate all the Jews left in the camp.  As the evacuation begins, an air-raid siren sounds, sending everybody indoors. When it seems that all has returned to normal and that the evacuation will proceed as planned, the resistance movement strikes, driving the SS from the camp. Hours later, on April 11, the American army arrives at Buchenwald. Now free, the prisoners think only of feeding themselves. Eliezer is struck with food poisoning and spends weeks in the hospital, deathly ill.

Quote:

 When he finally raises himself and looks in the mirror—

“From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.”- page 115

Reaction:

This is the bitter reality of all the surviors of the Holocaust, they were in the true sense just skin and bone, hardly enough mussel to move around

Dibiltated for live, most died early, those who survived bore scars phisically, mentally, emotionally, and even spritually. These were a

crushed people, but, time heals all wounds and the world has moved past the Holocaust, but it will forever hang over the shoulder of the world, a reminder

of the lowest of all human acts.