NIght pages 85-97

The Jews are forced to march through the icy wind and snow towards their new camp, Gleiwitz. The SS force them to increase their pace, referring to the "inferior" Jews as filthy dogs, a utilization of the process of dehumanization. The SS "had orders to shoot anyone who could not sustain the pace. Their fingers on the triggers, they did not deprive themselves of the pleasure" (p. 85). The Germans considered it service to their country, an honor, to eradicate the Jewish population. Eliezer is hampered by his foot, and bitterly contemplates the existence of two separate parts of himself: his body and him. Men collapse in the snow around him, followed by the whistle of bullets. A Polish boy, Zalman, contracts severe stomach cramps, and falls over in the snow; Eliezer briefly recalls the fact that no gunshot was heard; the fall of Zalman went unnoticed by the SS; the thousands of prisoners behind him must have trampled him to death. As Eliezer quickly forgets the fate of Zalman, "death enveloped me, it suffocated me. It stuck to me like glue. I felt I could touch it. The idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate me" (p. 86). Eliezer here is surrounded by the dead and the dying, by the retort of German guns and the dirty snow punctuated by spots of crimson surrounding the stricken bodies of fallen men. He fells almost as one with death, a part of death; "it stuck to me like glue". His father's presence is the only factor that restrains him from allowing himself to die by the side of the road. As Eliezer thinks of his options, he seems to leave his body, not noticing the pain in his foot or the very fact that he is running. He "returns" to his body and notes, "we were the masters of nature, the masters of the world. We had transcended everything---death, fatigue, our own natural needs. We were stronger than the cold and hunger, stronger than the guns and the desire to die, doomed and rootless, nothing but numbers, we were the only men on earth"(p. 87). As they are forced to endure these perilous conditions, Eliezer at least considers them stronger than anyone else on earth. The Kommandant that already they have covered twenty kilometers, attempting to raise the spirits of the prisoners. After another hour of marching, they are finally allowed to halt.

The men sink to the snow, exhausted by the long march. Eliezer's father urges him to enter a rickety shed, really a brick factory with no roof. Eliezer sinks to the snow-covered ground and falls asleep. He is awakened by his father. His father "was completely twisted, shriveled up into himself. His eyes were glazed over, his lips parched, decayed. Everything about him expressed total exhaustion" (p. 88). The lifestyle of those in the concentration camps often involved unprecedented physical damage, often making the prisoners appear to be living skeletons. Eliezer and his father watch out for each other, making sure that the other will not fall into eternal sleep. Rabbi Eliahu appears from the shed. He is frantically searching for his son, separated in the march, whom Eliezer recalls is Zalman. Upon the Rabbi's departure, Eliezer realizes that Zalmar had seen his father and that he had run away from his father, as if in the hopes of freeing himself of a burden. As this thought crosses his mind, Eliezer finds himself praying, "Oh God, master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu's son has done" (p. 91). In this dire moment of panic, of wondering if he himself will abandon his father, Eliezer reopens his connection with God, though he is still no completely convinced in the justice of God. Night falls and the prisoners are ordered to reform into ranks. As Eliezer notes, "the dead remained in the yard, under the snow without even a marker, like fallen guards...Sons abandoned the remains of their fathers without a tear" (p. 92). This horrific experience of the camp has imposed a Darwinian survival of the fittest upon the prisoners; they have begun to care only for their own survival, leaving their fellow Jews and even their fathers without protest or even the shedding of a single tear. The SS encourage the Jews on, and even though they have caused them great suffering, the Jews still find the words encouraging. It stops snowing, and they finally arrive at the barbed wire of Gleiwitzz.

The Kapos quickly settle them into their barracks. Their is a rolling tide of bodies, and in the chaos Eliezer and his father are thrown to the ground. Eliezer ends up on top of Juliek, a violinst in the Buna orchestra. Juliek has somehow managed to smuggle a violin into the camp. After freeing himself, Eliezer hears "a violin in a dark barrack where the dead were piled on top of the living" (p. 94). As Eliezer listens, he feels as if "Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. He played that which he would never play again" (p. 95). While some are said to see their life flash before their eyes, Juliek manages to convey his life story into the music of Beethoven, a farewll of sorts to an audience of the dead and the dying. The next morning Eliezer sees Juliek dead, his violin trampled into the ground. The prisoners stay at Gleiwitz for three days without food and water. They are then forced through another selection, in which Eliezer's father is selected, but Eliezer raises a riot and in the confusion Eliezer and his father move to the side of those who have not been selected. The chapter ends as he prisoners are forced into cattle cars, one hundred to a car, and Eliezer can only comment on how skinny they are.