Night
by Elie Wiesel
Table of Contents
Chapter 7-Chapter 9
Chapter 7
Eliezer, thinking his father is dead, desperately tries to revive him in order to prevent the SS volunteers from discarding his body.
The train resumes its journey for several days with the prisoners lying on the floor, one on top of the other, and subsisting on snow as food. They would surprise the early morning German laborers with their appearance.
Once, one such German laborer threw his loaf of bread into the wagon, and a fight ensued over the bread, with people physically fighting each other in order to get a bite. In the ensuing battle in which son flailed father, both were killed by another who snatched the bread from them.
One night in the wagon, Eliezer himself was almost killed by someone who attempted to suffocate him.
Conditions on that train ride were horrific. Hundreds had boarded the train. On the last night of their journey, only twelve disembarked. Among them were Eliezer and his father.
They had arrived in Buchenwald.
Chapter 8
This chapter shows the decline and eventful demise of Eliezer’s father. It starts off inauspiciously: He wants surrender and die. Then he is feverish and begging for coffee and soup. Shortly afterward, his father seems to have become delusional and paranoid—thinking that people are pursuing him and attacking him even when they are not—and lapsing into strange behavior. He articulates nonsense, has dysentery, and is either refused help by doctors or is seen by some who want to kill him. The barrack comrades also beat him.
Eliezer eventually gives in to his constant pleas for water, giving his father all that he has, even though he has been warned not to do so. He knows that his father will soon die anyway.
One time when his father was feverishly pleading for water, an SS officer beat him to be silent. Even as his father was being beaten, he continued pleading with his son for the water. His son, lying on the lower bunk, did not dare move for fear that he, too, would be...
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