As I read, it gets harder and harder to continue because I never know what cruel thing I will discover on the next page. "...there existed here a traffic of children among homosexuals..." "He threw himself on me...crushing me with ever more violent blows..." "He began beating him with an iron bar." It's hard to imagine that anyone is even capable of this behavior, this lack of humanity.
I think the thing that really got me though was the hanging of the pipel at the very end of the chapter. I think Wiesel packed that story full of emotion, I was on the verge of tears just reading it. It's hard for me to imagine any man, any human, being able to kill a small child, and yet, here it is, made into a show for the whole camp to endure. But the strange thing, almost beautiful, if there could be a beautiful moment in such a horrific event, was the slight glimpse into the small pieces of humanity still left in the Kapos and officers as one refused to be executioner and the other's voice cracked as he yelled the command. The innocence of a child brings out the best in most, and when that innocence is stolen from them, many people's humanity peeps through the cracks of their hardened hearts. But then you have to wonder, why do they continue to take part in the concentration camps? Why follow such inhumane, cruel, disgusting orders? Maybe they also have someone to fear. And fear is the most powerful emotion out there.
I also found this chapter to be increasingly difficult to read. Like you, Mikaela, I thought the child being hung was particularly horrible, especially because of a remark Eliezer makes in the narrative at the time of the hanging. When he says that a voice inside him said that God was hung on the gallows with the boy, I think this brought the dissipation of Eliezer's faith to its peak. I also feel that this connects to his view of humanity, and perhaps he also feels humanity died with the child. I was wondering if you also think that there is an inherent connection between Eliezer's view of God/divinity and humanity?
ReplyDeleteI didn't really make a connection between his view of God and humanity, but I can kind of see it now that you mentioned it. I think with the death of his faith and God, his sense of humanity has died. It's hard to see anything good within the live he is living at this moment in time.
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