Night

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Excerpt

The Long Train Ride: For several days, Elie and his fellow Jews rode in railroad cars until they reached Auschwitz. They only had a few loaves of bread, buckets of water, and no room to lie down.

No Escape: The Jews were told they were now “under the authority of the German Army”, and that if any train car had less than the 80 people assigned to it, that they’d all be “shot like dogs.”

Social Breakdown: Young people were said to have been “copulating” (having sex) openly as they no longer cared about social rules and manners. People were tired, hungry, scared, and began to lose their patience with one another.

Madame Schachter: A mother of a 10 year old boy, she supposedly “went mad” as she described visions of fire, flames, and a furnace. People bound and gagged her, and some men even hit her in the head, with “blows thatmight have killed her.”

Arrival at Auschwitz: When the train finally stopped at the concentration camp, Madame Schachter’s vision became true: the Jews saw huge flames coming out of the furnace chimney, and everyone smelled the horrible stench of burning human flesh.

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Low-level notes over Elie Weisel's Night, Chapter 2