Auschwitz

The first and concentration camp they went to was Auschwitz. They arrived to Auschwitz in freight trains. Most people died in the freight trains because there were tiny windows for the people to breath and they were jammed in there so tight that they could not even sit down. They also died from the extreme heat, starvation and thirst. In the book, Elizer and his father gets separated from his mom and sister and then they go through "Selection". There were many stories about the things Elizer saw in the concentration camps. He told stories about babies being thrown up in the air as targets for the soldiers to shoot at. He also said that men had to dig a huge trench and then when they were done, they were shot in the head by the soldiers and then they would fall into the trench that the prisoners just got done digging.

That was not the only horrible things that happened in Auschwitz. In Auschwitz, they were put of this sort of diet. In the story, Elizer's father was so thirsty but Elizer knew that if he were to give him water that his father would become even more thirsty. They got a piece of bread, and soup to eat in the concentration camps Elizer was at. Inmates would lose some many pounds a week that by the end of that month, that person would not be recognizable; just bones and barley any flesh. There was even a part in the book where they were on the freight trains and a very old father crawled on the floor and found a piece of bread. The son noticed that his dad had found food so he attacked his own father, which actually killed that dad. While he was fighting with his dad about the food it brought attention to them and more people tried to get that piece of bread. Then a rush of people attacked the son for the piece of bread, and that mob of people actually killed then killed the son.

 The longer they stayed in Auschwitz, the less they started to care about their loved ones. When they were walking to another camp, during the winter season, a son was running next to his father. The father started to lag behind, and if you started to slow down, you would be shot. The son did not even look back to see if his father was okay, he just kept running like nothing even happened. When they got to their destination, the father was looking for his son because he never got shot like the son had thought he would. The father asked Elizer if he had seen his son, which Elizer had, but he did not want to tell him that because ELizer knew that the son left the father behind to die.

Another horrible thing was that when they had made it to Buchenwald, Elizer's father had gotten really sick and weak. His dad actually got beat up every day because he was no use to the other prisoners. Elizer's dad would yell at Elizer to make them stop whipping him, but Elizer just stayed in him bed and did not move because he did not want to get whipped. Every time his father would say his name, Elizer's dad would get whipped one more time. If that was anyone in my family, I know that in a heart beat I would pounce on whoever was hurting them no matter what condition I was under. Then the next morning, his father was not there. Elizer figured that he was sent to the gas chambers or the crematorium.