The Importance Of Gravediggers During The Holocaust

Train cars were the main way of transportation of Jews during the Holocaust from camp to camp. They were filled 100 people per cattle car. Consequently, they were so compressed they couldn’t move. It was winter during Elies transportation to camp Buchenwald. As a result, people in each car were freezing to death every minute. Due to the multiple deaths, the train would stop to unload the dead bodies to make room for the living. Volunteers would undress the dead to share their garments. Then “gravediggers” would throw the deceased out of the wagons. While they were tossing bodies, Elie had realized that his father was about to be one of those corpses if he didn’t wake up. When the “gravediggers” got to him, Elie had failed to wake up. Being
Once stopping in a German town, people started throwing pieces of bread into the train cars to watch the spectacle. As they did this the people in the cars would fight tooth and nail for the small pieces of bread. Elie watched as an old man he knew was violently killed by his own son over a crust of bread. In mere seconds the son was jumped by two men and killed. The morning after that, Elie was awoken by a man trying to strangle him. In an effort to get him off he called for his father who eventually called for a family friend who was also in the same train car. Meir Katz was his name. Meir Katz was the strongest of everyone because he worked as a gardener in Buna, so he had the availability of fresh fruit and greens that no one else could eat. Therefor, Katz was easily able to remove Elie’s aggressor. Days later Katz told Elie’s father that he was getting weak and that he would not be able to make it much longer. But he wasn’t the only one feeling this way. On the last day of their journey everyone began to cry. The lament spread from train car to train car. That night they reached Buchenwald. As they exited the train cars, they were forced to leave the dead behind in the cars. Out of the hundred or so that started in Elie’s wagon, twelve left
He had been transferred to the children's block. At this time, nothing mattered to Elie anymore other than eating. Later on, word spread that Hitler was about to keep his promise. Accordingly, the camp was to be evacuated, ten blocks of inmates each day. From that moment on there was no more distribution of soup and bread. Once they were all evacuated they planned to blow up the camp. However, before they were able to completely evacuate, resistance appeared from everywhere. The battle didn’t last long. “At six o’clock that afternoon, the first American tank stood at the gates of Buchenwald.” Their first act as free men was to throw themselves at the food. They had no thought of revenge, or of their family. Just food. Subsequently, Elie became ill. He was transferred to a hospital spending weeks between life and death. One morning he gathered the strength to get up and look in the mirror seeing a corpse that he didn’t recognize.

Elie will never know where the corpse of his father ended up. He will never get the closure of burying his father. Throughout their journey their relationship had become stronger. Elie had put his father first the whole time. He was supportive and he always kept his father going. They gave eachother a reason to live, something to fight for. This is in contrast to their relationship before their imprisonment. Eliezer was aware of his father's concern for others before his own family, and he greatly