At the gate of the camp, SS officers were waiting for us. They counted us. Then we were directed to the assembly place. Orders were given us through loudspeak- ers: "Form fives!" "Form groups of a hundred!" "Five paces forward!"
I held onto my father's hand-the old, familiar fear: not to lose him.
Right next to us the high chimney of the crematory oven rose up. It no longer made any impression on us. It scarcely attracted our attention .
An established inmate of Buchenwald told us that we should have a shower and then we could go into the blocks .
The idea of having a hot bath fascinated me. My father was silent. He was breathing heavily beside me.
"Father," I said. "Only another moment more. Soon we can lie down-in a bed. You can rest . . . . "
He did not answer. I was so exhausted myself that his silence left me indifferent. My only wish was to take a bath as quickly as possible and lie down in a bed.
But it was not easy to reach the showers. Hundreds of prisoners were crowding there. The guards were unable to keep any order. They struck out right and left with no apparent result. Others, without the strength to push or even to stand up, had sat down in the snow. My father wanted to do the same. He groaned.
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Elie Wiesel100
"I can't go on . . This is the end . . . . I'm going to die here . . . . "
He dragged me toward a hillock of snow from which emerged human shapes and ragged pieces of blanket.
"Leave me," he said to me. "I can't go on . . . . Have mercy on me . . . . I'll wait here until we can get into the baths . . . . You can come and find me. "
I could have wept with rage. Having lived through so much, suffered so much, could I leave my father to die now? Now, when we could have a good hot bath and lie down?
"Father!" I screamed . "Father! Get up from here!
Im mediately! You're killing yourself . . . . "
I seized him by the arm. He continued to groan.
"Don't shout, son . . . . Take pity on your old father. . Leave me to rest here . . . . Just for a bit, I'm so tired . at the end of my strength . . . . "
He had become like a child, weak, timid, vulnerable.
"Father, " I said. "You can't stay here."
I showed him the corpses all around him; they too had wanted to rest here.
"I can see them, son. I can see them all right. Let them sleep. It's so long since they closed their eyes. . . . They
are exhausted . . . exhausted. "
His voice was tender.
I yelled against the wind: "They'll never wake again! Never! Don't you under stand?"
For a long time this argument went on. I felt that I was not arguing with him, but with death itself, with the death that he had already chosen.
The sirens began to wail. An alert. The lights went out throughout the camp. The guards drove us toward the blocks. In a flash, there was no one left on the assembly place. We were only too glad not to have had to stay outside longer in the icy wind. We let ourselves sink down onto the planks. The beds were in seveyal tiers. The cauldrons of
Night 101
soup at the entrance attracted no one. To sleep, that was all that mattered.
It was daytime when I awoke. And then I remembered that I had a father. Since the alert, I had followed the crowd without troubling about him . I had known that he was at the end, on the brink of death, and yet I had abandoned
him .
I went to look for him.
But at the same moment this thought came into my mind: "Don't let me find him ! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself." Imme diately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever.
I walked for hours without finding him. Then I came to the block where they were giving out black "coffee. " The men were lining up and fighting.
A plaintive, beseeching voice caught me in the spine: "Elieze. . . my son . . . bring me . . . a drop of� . coffee . . . .
I ran to him.
"Father! I've been looking for you for so long.
Where were you? Did you sleep? . . . How do you feel?"
He was burning with fever. Like a wild beast, I cleared a way for myself to the coffee cauldron. And I managed to carry back a cupful. I had a sip. The rest was for him . I can't forget the light of thankfulness in his eyes while he gulped it down-an animal gratitude. With those few gulps of hot water, I probably brought him more satisfaction than I had done during my whole childhood.
He was lying on a plank, livid, his lips pale and dried up, shaken by tremors. I could not stay by him for long.
Orders had been given to clear the place for cleaning. Only the sick could stay.
We stayed outside for five hours . Soup was given out.
As soon as we were allowed to go back to the blocks, I ran to
my father.
"Have you had anything to eat?"
"No . "
Elie Wiesel102
"Why not?"
"They didn't give us anything . . . they said that if we were ill we should die soon anyway and it would be a pity to waste the food. I can't go on any more. . . . "
I gave him what was left of my soup. But it was with a heavy heart. I felt that I was giving it up to him against my will. No better than Rabbi Eliahou's son had I withstood the test.
He grew weaker day by day, his gaze veiled, his face the color of dead leaves. On the third day after our arrival at Buchenwald, everyone had to go to the showers. Even the sick, who had to go through last.
On the way back from the baths, we had to wait outside for a long time. They had not yet finished cleaning the blocks.
Seeing my father in the distance, I ran to meet him .
He went by me like a ghost, passed Jlle without stopping, without looking at me. I called to him . He did not come
back. I ran after him : "Father, where are you running to?"
He looked at me for a moment, and his gaze was distant, visionary; it was the face of someone else. A moment only and on he ran again.
Struck down with dysentery, my father lay in his bunk, five other invalids with him . I sat by his side, watching him, not daring to believe that he could escape death again.
Nevertheless, I did all I could to give him hope.
Suddenly, he raised himself on his bunk and put his feverish lips to my ear: "Eliezer . . . I must tell you where to find the gold and the money I buried . . . in the cellar . . . . You know . . . · . "
He began to talk faster and faster, as though he were afraid he would not have time to tell me. I tried to explain to him that this was not the end, that we would go back to the house together, but he would not listen to me. He
Night 103
could no longer listen to me. He was exhausted . A trickle of saliva, mingled with blood, was running from between his lips. He had closed his eyes. His breath was coming in gasps.
For a ration of bread, I managed to change beds with a prisoner in my father's bunk. In the afternoon the doctor came. I went and told him that my father was very ill.
"Bring him here!"
I explained that he could not stand up. But the doctor refused to listen to anything. Somehow, I brought my father to him. He stared at him , then questioned him in a
clipped voice: "What do you want?"
"My father's ill," I answered for him. "Dysen tery . . . "
"Dysentery? That's not my business. I'm a surgeon.
Go on! Make room for the others . "
Protests did no go�d.
"I can't go on, son. . . . Take me back to my bunk. . . . "
I took him back and helped him to lie down. He was shivering. 'Try and sleep a bit, father. Try to go to sleep . . . . "
His breathing was labored, thick. He kept his eyes shut. Yet I was convinced that he could see everything, that now he could see the truth in all things.
Another doctor came to the block. But my father would not get up. He knew that it was useless.
Besides, this doctor had only come to finish off the sick. I could hear him shouting at them that they were lazy and just wanted to stay in bed. I felt like leaping at his throat, strangling him . But I no longer had the courage or the strength. I was riveted to my father's deathbed. My hands hurt, I was clenching them so hard. Oh, to strangle the doctor and the others! To burn the whole world! M y father's murderers! But the cry stayed i n my throat.
Elie Wiesel104
When I came back from the bread distribution, I found
my father weeping like a child:
"Son, they keep hitting me!"
"Who?"
I thought he was delirious.
"Him, the Frenchman . . . and the Pole . . . they were hitting me."
Another wound to the heart, another hate, another reason for living lost.
"Eliezer . . . Eliezer . . . tell them not to hit me. . . . I haven't done anything. . . . Why do they keep hitting me?"
I began to abuse his neighbors . They laughed at me. I promised them bread, soup. They laughed. Then they got angry; they could not stand my father any longer, they said, because he was now unable to drag himself outside to relieve himself. r The following day he complained that they had taken
his ration of bread.
"While you were asleep?"
"No. I wasn't asleep. They jumped on top of me. They snatched my bread . . . and they hit me . . . again. . . . I can't stand any more, son . . . a drop of water. . . . "
I knew that he must not drink. But he pleaded with me for so long that I gave in. Water was the worst poison he could have, but what else could I do for him? With water, without water, it would all be over soon anyway . . .
""You, at least, have some mercy on me.
Have mercy on him! I, his only son!
A week went by like this.
"This is your father, isn't it?" asked the head of the
block.
"Yes. "
"He's very ill."
Night 105
"The doctor won't do anything for him . " ''The doctor can't do anything for him, now. And neither can you."
He put his great hairy hand on my shoulder and added: "Listen to me, boy. Don't forget that you're in a concentration camp. Here, every man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else. Even of his father.
Here, there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends. Every one lives and dies for himself alone. I'll give you a sound piece of advice--don't give your ration of bread and soup to your old father. There's nothing you can do for him. And you're killing yourself. Instead, you ought to be having his ration . "
I listened to him without interrupting. H e was right, I thought in the most secret region of my heart, but I dared not admit it. It's too late to save your old father, I said to myself. You ought to be having two rations of bread, two rations of soup. . . .
Only a fraction of a second, but I felt guilty. I ran to find a little soup to give my father. But he did not want it.
All he wanted was water.
"Don't drink water . . . have some soup . . . . "
"I'm burning . . . why are you being so unkind to me, my son? Some water. . . . "
I brought him some water. Then I left the block for roll call. But I turned around and came back again. I lay down on the top bunk. Invalids were allowed to stay in the block.
So I would be an invalid myself. I would not leave my father.
There was silence all round now, broken only by groans. In front of the block, the SS were giving orders. An officer passed by the beds. My father begged me: "My son, some water. . . . I'm burning. . . . My stomach . . . . "
"Quiet, over there!" yelled the officer.
"Eliezer," went on my father, "some water.
The officer came up to him and shouted at him to be
106 Elie Wiesel
quiet. But my father did not hear him. He went on calling me. The officer dealt him a violent blow on the head with his truncheon.
I did not move. I was afraid. My body was afraid of also receiving a blow.
Then my father made a rattling noise and it was my name: "Eliezer. "
I could see that he was still breathing-spasmodiC?Jly.
I did not move.
When I got down after roll call, I could see his lips trembling as he murmured something. Bending over him, I stayed gazing at him for over an hour, engraving into myself the picture of his blood-stained face, his shattered skull.
Then I had to go to bed. I climbed into my bunk, above my father, who was still alive. It was January 28, 1945.
I awoke on January 29 at dawn . In my father's place lay another invalid. They must have taken him away before dawn and carried him to the crematory. He may still have been breathing.
There were no prayers at his grave. No candles were lit to his memory. H is last word was my name. A summons, to which I did not respond.
and it pained me that I could notI did not weep, weep. But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like-free at last!