Chapter 4

This chapter takes us through Elie and his father's experiences in the work camp Buna. By this point in their experience, they have ceased to feel emotion unless they are severely perturbed. The abuse they face becomes so commonplace that it causes their detachedness from emotion. Their situation only becomes more dire the longer they are in the concentration camp.

They arrive at the new work camp and they are again separated into different groups. This time, they are mixed into different work Kommandos. Since the separation process and medical assessments takes a few days, they ask around to find out about the camp and the quality of the work Kommandos. Everybody they find says that Buna is a good camp and that the work Kommandos are all okay, with the exception of the construction Kommando. They take notice of the orchestra playing the same march continuously as the Kommandos march to their "job sites" and back. The SS officers in this camp seem to take more kindly to them and offer more rations to young inmates, old inmates, sick inmates, and weak inmates. Later on, this kindness is proven to be only skin deep when the inmates see what cruelty the SS officers are capable of and willing to resort to. The SS officers make no attempt to hide the fact that they want anything worth something that the inmates have. Just as what happened when they arrived at Auschwitz, their new shoes are eyed and taken by the officers. The "dentist" they all must see is really only checking for the inmates' valuable gold crowns. Elie is able to avoid getting his taken out by faking illness. He simply bides his time until, luckily, the dentist's office is closed down. It turned out that he was dealing in the gold crown for his own purposes. This makes clear the fact that they only are concerned about themselves. Elie and his father are put in the Kommando that works in the warehouses organizing spare parts. One officer, Idek, was particularly lacking in his ability to control his anger and he lashed out at the inmates, including Elie. The French woman he worked next to at the warehouses consoled him and, in German, told him to not lash out in hate. When they serendipitously meet again later in France, she says that she was actually a Jew but she needed to pass off as Aryan. This meant that speaking to him in German was a risk for her, but she said she knew he wouldn't reveal his secret. The next to fall victim to Idek's anger was Elie's father. Franek, their barrack commander turns against Elie and his father when Elie refuses to give him his gold crown. This is just another example of how much they are victims to the whims of the SS officers of the work camps. When Elie stumbles upon Idek raping one of the inmates, Idek gives him 25 lashes and threatens more. When an air raid targets Buna, they all must hide in the barracks and anyone outside them would be shot on site. One inmate goes after unguarded pots of soup and is taken out by an SS officer. All of this attests to the fact that they were all subject to how temperamental their SS officers were.

Soon, they all became to witnesses to how far the SS officers would go to maintain an undeniable aura of power and the willingness to use it. When they gathered in the Appelplatz one night for roll call, they were met with a big, black, menacing gallows. A youth was brought out, "tried" by the Lageralteste, and then taken to the gallows. He was escorted by two other inmates, each in exchange for two extra rations. This is just an example of how the officers maintained control over the inmates and coerced them into doing their bidding: their lifeblood, food. The youth sentenced to hang began shouting freedom calls once on the gallows. Obviously, this ended when the hangman finished his work. To keep the inmates fearing their wrath, and death, the SS officers made them slowly process out of the Appelplatz past the hanged youth and take a good look at him. They all witnessed many more hangings like this one. One barrack was found to have hidden caches of weapons. Its Oberkapo was sent off to a concentration camp, its young pipel and 2 others found to possess weapons were sentenced to hanging in one of these "ceremonies." As they again processed out past the gallows, the young pipel was still there writhing for a half hour slowly suffocating his way to death, too small to have been killed instantly. These hangings served a double purpose, they kept the order and fear of the SS officers alive and they eliminated any direct "threats" to their authority.

The inmates were treated horribly by the SS officers that ran the show. This made them wish for liberation to come soon. However, as things worsened, they lost hope and simply hoped to die so they may escape the pain. They were slowly de-humanized to a level equal with animals. As Elie says, "The bread, the soup-those were my entire life. I was nothing but a body. Perhaps even less: a famished stomach. The stomach alone was measuring time." They lost nearly everything that made them human and resorted back to their priman instincts; many also lost faith.

On top: The Gallows in Auschwitz
On Bottom: The Auschwitz Orchestra