II had to stay at Buchenwald until April eleventh. have nothing to say of my life during this period. It no longer mattered. After my father's death, nothing could touch me any more.
I was transferred to the children's block, where there
were six hundred of us.
The front was drawing nearer.
I spent my days in a state of total idleness. And I had but one desire--to eat. I no longer thought of my father or of my mother.
From time to time I would dream of a drop of soup, of an extra ration of soup. . . .
On April fifth, the wheel of history turned.
It was late in the afternoon. We were standing in the block, waiting for an SS man to come and count us. He was late in coming. Such a delay was unknown till then in the history of Buchenwald. Something must have happened.
Two hours later the loudspeakers sent out an order from the head of the camp: all the Jews must come to the assembly place.
This was the end! Hitler was going to keep his promise.
The children in our block went toward the place.
There was nothing else we could do. Gustav, the head of
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Elie Wiesel108
the block, made this clear to us with his truncheon. But on the way we met some prisoners who whispered to us: "Go back to your block. The Germans are going to shoot you. Go back to your block, and don't move. "
We went back to our block. We learned o n the way that the camp resistance organization had decided not to abandon the Jews and was going to prevent their being liquidated.
As it was late and there was great upheaval innumerable Jews had passed themselves off as non-Jews -the head of the camp decided that a general roll call would take place the following day. Everybody would have to be present.
The roll call took place. The head of the camp announced that Buchenwald was to be liquidated. Ten blocks of deportees would be evacuated each day. From this moment, there would be no further distribution of bread and soup. And the evacuation began. Every day, several thousand prisoners went through the camp gate and never came back.
On April tenth , there were still about twenty thousand of us in the camp, including several hundred children.
They decided to evacuate us all at once, right on until the evening. Afterward, they were going to blow up the camp.
So we were massed in the huge assembly square, in rows of five, waiting to see the gate open. Suddenly, the sirens began to wail. An alert! We went back to the blocks.
It was too late to evacuate us that evening. The evacuation was postponed again to the following day.
We were tormented with hunger. We had eaten nothing. for six days, except a bit of grass or some potato peelings found near the kitchens.
At ten o'clock in the morning the SS scattered through the camp, moving the last victims toward the assembly place.
Then the resistance mcwement decided to act. Armed
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men suddenly rose up everywhere. Bursts of firing. Gre nades exploding. We children stayed flat on the ground in the block.
The battle did not last long. Toward noon everything was quiet again. The SS had fled and the resistance had taken charge of the running of the camp.
At about six o'clock in the evening, the first American tank stood at the gates of Buchenwald.
Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. We thought only of that. Not of revenge, not of our families. Nothing but bread.
And even when we were no longer hungry, there was still no one who thought of revenge. On the following day, some of the young men went to Weimar to get some potatoes and clothes-and to sleep with girls. But of revenge, not a sign.
Three days after the liberation of Buchenwald I be came very ill with food poisoning. I was transferred to the hospital and spent two weeks between life and death.
One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.
The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ELIE WIESEL was born in Hungary in 1928. When he was
still a boy, he was deported with his family to Auschwitz
and then to Buchenwald, where his parents and a younger
sister died. Night, his first book, is a memoir of these expe
riences. Mter the war he moved to Paris, where he
adopted the French language and lived for a decade. His
work as a journalist took him to Israel and finally to the
United States, where he now makes his home in New York
City. Since 1976 he has been Andrew Mellon Professor in
the Humanities at Boston University. His books include
Daum, The Accident, The Toum Beyond the WaU, The Gates of
the Forest, A Beggar in Jerusalem (winner of the French Prix
Medici for 1969 ) , and his most recent novel, TheFifth Son.
Against Silence: The Voice and Vision of Elie Wiesel, a three
volume collection of his work, was published in 1985. In
1985 Elie Wiesel received the Congressional Gold Medal
and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.