Chapter 7

In this chapter, Elie relates his experiences as they were all herded onto cattle cars and shipped to a concentration camp deeper into Germany. They are stuffed in the open-topped cars like sardines and there is much competition among them. They fight for food, space, and survival. By this point in time, they have been reduced to an existence that can only be described as animal.

They begin their several day long journey to the new concentration camp in the open-topped cattle cars packed from 100 to 150 each. It is miserably cold and many begin to die off very quickly with the cold added to the fact that they have no food, water, or hygiene. The only "good" aspects of their situation are that there's plenty of snow to eat, they're so tightly packed that they are at least somewhat able to keep warm, and the SS officers are not worrying to keep them regulated and orderly. Every now and then they would stop to unload all of the dead bodies that had accumulated in the cars. Those still alive were relatively enthusiastic about it because they then had more space in the cars and they were able to search the bodies for anything they found to be valuable; to them, things considered valuable included just about everything, even clothes. One of these times, Elie's father is asleep and breathing so faintly that he is taken for dead and those unloading the cars try to unload him. Elie, however, starts yelling that he is still alive and his father comes to during all of the commotion, causing them to move on. Everywhere it went, the train left "snowy fields" filled with "hundreds of naked orphans without a tomb" " in its wake." As the train rolled through towns, people threw pieces of bread into the cars and entertained themselves by watching them fight for it like savages. One was thrown into Elie's car and everybody began fighting for it. He stayed out for he knew he was not strong enough to come out victorious from the fight. An old man takes two crusts of the bread and withdraws from the fierce battle. He eats one and his son, Meir, comes over and kills him for the second piece which he was actually saving for him; Meir is then killed by the others who stopped to watch the outcome. Elie's traumatizing experiences on the train left an indelible mark on him emotionally which showed itself one day when he saw a Parisian woman taking great joy in throwing pennies to the "natives" and watching them fight for them. To keep peace in the cars, they all appointed a leader in their car: Meir Katz. This Meir was more well nourished than the others and was stronger so therefore more able to keep the peace; one night Elie awoke to some man strangling him and his father called to Meir to help them. On the last day of the journey, Meir Katz finally had had enough and broke; he cried about his son who had been sentenced to the crematoria in the first selection, he cried about how he can no longer go on, he cried that he can not go on like this any longer. Later in the day, when the wind whips up and the temperature drops, they all decide to run in place in the cars so that they may keep warm. Many succumb to death's cold embrace on this final leg of the journey. Many more, including those who can't walk, are left in the cars as they disembark from the train, among them in Meir Katz. They had arrived in Buchenwald.

Top to Bottom: Train of transportation cars leaving the station at Gleiwitz, The open-top cattle cars packed with inmates, The sleeping and dead piled in the cars with no way to tell the difference between the two, The dead still left in the cars after those who had made it were off the train, One of the many dead bodies left beside the train tracks when they emptied the cars out.