SUMMARY #4: pages 48-65
Eliezer and his father are chosen by a Kapo to serve in a unit of prisoners whose job consists of counting electrical fittings in a civilian warehouse. In this block of prisoners, Eliezer meets Juliek, a Jewish violinist, and the brothers Yosi and Tibi. Eliezer is suddenly ordered to go to the dentist to have his gold crown pulled. In an attempt to postpone having his crown pulled, he tells the dentist that he is ill and needs time to recover before he get his crown pulled out. Eliezer is successful when the dentist believes him. Soon after, the dentist is is hanged for illegally trading in gold teeth. Eliezer doesn't feel sorry for the dentist at all. One day, Idek, the Kapo in charge of Eliezer’s work crew, gets mad and beats Eliezer for no reason. A French girl, who works next to Eliezer in the warehouse, offers comfort to Eliezer after being severely beaten.
Eliezer, the narrator, skips forward several years and explains how, after the Holocaust, he runs into the same girl on the Metro in Paris who provided him comfort that day. H tells her that he recognized her, and she told him her story of how she was a Jew passing as an Aryan on forged papers. She was working in the warehouse as a laborer but was not a concentration camp prisoner.
The flash forward of Paris ends and Eliezer’s father soon falls as victim to one of Idek’s rages. While seeing his father get beaten, Eliezer realizes how much he has changed since now he is only concerned about his survival, and not of his father's. When Franek, the prison foreman, notices Eliezer’s gold crown, he demands it. Eliezer refuses to give up his gold crown, so Franek starts to beat Eliezer's father until he gives in.
The Nazis have the gallows in the central square where they publicly hang a man who tried to steal something during the air raid. Eliezer witnesses another hanging of two prisoners that were suspected of being involved with the resistance and of a young boy who was the servant of a resistance member. Eliezer explains how during these hangings, no one cries at the pain and suffering being watched, until they see a child struggling to stay alive when he becomes hanged. When Eliezer passes the child, he says that child was still alive and his tongue was still red. When Eliezer eats the soup that day, he says that the taste was of corpses.
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When I was reading this, I thought it was very risky of Eliezer to tell the dentist that he was sick. What if he got caught, or what if they sent him to the crematorium because they might have assumed he would not be able to work. I also think it is cruel that they force them to watch other people being hanged. I think that is part of the reason they become so un-phased by death. They learn to deal with it, and push it aside.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh Rosemarie its like you read my mind, I thought the exact same thing while I was reading that part.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same! It was very risky for Eliezer to tell the doctor that he was sick because at that time, if you were too weak or sick to work, you were sentenced to death since you wouldn't have been useful anymore. I'm glad that Eliezer wasn't labeled as being too sick to work because then he would have headed straight to the gas chambers.
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