Student Question
In Night, what did the prisoners receive and what happened at the third barracks?
Quick answer:
Prisoners in the concentration camp receive random clothing after being subjected to dehumanizing treatment. Initially, they are stripped, shaved, beaten, and forced to run in cold weather. At the second barracks, they are disinfected with petrol and given a hot shower before being exposed again to the cold. At the third barracks, prisoners are given "trousers, tunic, shirt, and socks" from a pile of prison clothes, without consideration for size or fit.
At five o'clock in the morning, the prisoners are driven out of the first barracks, where their clothes have been taken and their bodies shorn. They are beaten by the Kapos and forced to run in the icy wind, until after a few minutes they arrive at the second barracks.
At the second barracks, everyone is soaked in petrol, which is used as a disinfectant. The prisoners are then forced into a hot shower, and driven outside into the icy cold yet again. After another period of running, they arrive at the third barracks.
The third barracks is a "store", with very long tables covered by "mountains of prison clothes". As the prisoners pass the talbe, "trousers, tunic, shirt, and socks" are randomly thrown at them.
I don't believe that there is anything said about the floor in the third barracks, but in the fourth barracks, the "gypsies'camp", there is no floor. This barracks, into which the prisoners are marched in ranks of five, consists only of "a roof and four walls". In the absence of a floor, the feet of the prisoners sink into the mud (Chapter 3).
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