Chattahoochee River
Monday, February 2, 2015
Risk and Reward (Ch. 5)
Eliezer and his father made the decision to not stay behind in the camp at the end of chapter 5. They felt that the prisoners in the hospital would likely be killed, which was a logical assumption to make considering that the Nazis repeatedly killed off those considered weak and unfit for work. Staying behind had a high risk, Elie and his father could have been killed on the spot, but they also had a high reward, that being their liberation. Leaving the camp would centralize the extreme risk and reward a little more, considering their survival would've been left up to their ability to keep pushing. They decided to leave their future in their own hands, rather than put it in the hands of the SS officers.
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Nahel, I think it's a very interesting point that you made about Elie and his father keeping their fate in their own hands as opposed to delegating it to the Nazis. Even though the outcome of their decision was less than favorable, ultimately, Elie and his father were able to make the decision for themselves and I think that says a lot about them. They could remain at the camp, unsure of life or death or they could travel while pondering the same choices but I think all in all, the latter gave them a much larger choice because it involved actually doing something as opposed to waiting to be liberated by an army they'd never seen or preparing to be executed by an everlasting enemy.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this was a very interesting point that they were the masters of their own fate if they didn't choose the infirmary. How were they supposed to know they wouldn't be killed if they stayed in the infirmary? At least if they went with the SS they would be able to continue their survival as they had before.
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