Night pages 47-65

The camp that the narrator and the other unskilled laborers enter at first appears empty and dead; only a few "well-dressed" inmates could be seen wandering the blocks. The head of the camp is a stocky man, and he gives an impression of kindness. He took an interest in the younger boys and gave orders for food to be brought for them. Their tent leader, as the narrator describes him, has "an assassin's face, fleshy lips, hands resembling a wolf's paws" (p. 48). To the narrator, all Germans are now enemies; they are the animals who forced himself and his father away from everything that he loved; his mother, his sisters, and his home foremost among these. The newest Jews are checked by three doctors to ascertain their state of health and whether
or not they had gold fillings and such. They are then assigned to various Kommandos; the narrator and his father are assigned to the orchestra's block. It is explained to them that they will work in a warehouse of electrical materials. The narrator is sent to the dentist to have
his gold crown removed, but he pretends that he is ill; a few days after this the dentist is thrown in prison for keeping gold fillings from other prisoners for his own personal gain.

In the warehouse the narrator often works next to an Aryan Frenchwoman. One day the narrator happens to cross Idek, the Kapo, who is venting his fury; "he threw himself on me like a wild beast, beating me in the chest, on my head, throwing me to the ground and picking me up again, crushing me with even more violent blows, until I was covered in blood" (p. 53). The Frenchwoman helps him to dress his wounds, speaking soothingly to him in German,
which previously he had believed that she did not understand. Many years later, as the story skips to that point, the narrator again meets this woman, and discovers that in fact she was a Jew, not an Aryan. Another time Idek against grows furious and begins to beat the narrator's father with an iron bar; the narrator does nothing to help his father, and grows ashamed of himself and of his father as of how the life in the concentration camp has changed them. The foreman, Franek, attempts to bargain with the narrator for his gold crown, but the narrator refuses. Franek begins to torment the narrator's father until the narrator is forced to give up his gold crown, even paying Franek for said "service" with his own ration. The narrator mistakenly observes Idek having sexual relations with a young woman, and for it he is brutally whipped.

On a certain Sunday, the narrator's father along with half of the group is working while the other half, including the narrator, took the opportunity to rest. Suddenly an alarm goes off; two cauldrons full of steaming soup were left untended, and hundreds of men sit around it; they are starving, but their fear outweighs their hunger. The door of Block 37 suddenly opens slightly, and a man appears, crawling towards the soup. "hundreds of eyes were watching his every move...All hearts trembled, but mostly with envy. He was the one who had dared" (p. 59). The men soon learn that the alarm has been sounded due to the bombing of the Buna factory. The narrator is anxious for the safety of his father, but he also was glad for the opportunity of the hated factory to burn. Following the raid, the man who dared to eat the soup is hung and all those who did not eat the soup are given a ration of the soup. Following the hanging, the narrator remarks that the soup tasted better than ever. The narrator here is following the basic mentality of better you than me. Soon after, however, comes a question of a hidden stash of weaponry, and three men are hung, including a beautiful little boy. Following this hanging, the narrator remarks that "that night, the soup tasted of corpses" (p. 65). To the narrator, this death of a seeming innocent, an angel among this world of brutal enemies, depresses him far more than the death of a strong man does.