the book starts with a description of a man who lives in the hometown of the Ellie the narrator of the book, at he age of 12, than they are deported by hungarian police but the incidence is forgotten. one day the hungarian police expel all the jews from sighet. Gestapos take over and force them to dig thier own grave.

They were taking turns sitting down, lack of food and water, the heat became unbearable, young people openly have sex, as everyone is pretending not to notice, the wagon stops at Kaschau in which they were informed that they were not staying in Hungary as they expected, were informed as they were under the authority of the German army. takes everybodys valauables and threatens to shoot everyone if even one person escapes

Men and women are seperated, As Elie is holding a death grip on his father hoping not to loose him, everyone marches Infront of a SS Officer to see who gets to live and who goes to the crematorium and dies. a truck fool of childern are drove to a fiery pit and thrown in as Elie watches his only son burn in flames.

Leader of the camp takes a special intrest in children and gave them extra food, Elizer explains that children are traded among homosexuals in the camp. Eliezer talks about a number of incidents that stood out in his memory. Alphonse gave them extra soup. and the dentist is hanged for extorting some of the gold from patients.

Rosh and all jews gathered at the assembly place. wondering if this might be the last day of year and their life. Eliezer refuses to bless God. He accuses God of injustice and feels strong yet alone. they have a selection that day to exam people to be assigned to the crematory. Eliezer father gives him his Knife and spoon as these are his only belongings. but they both pass and eliezer gives him his stuff back.

SS officers are making the prisoners run through the snow and any one who falls behind gets shot on the spot. Elizer gets tired of his body and wishes he could get rid of it, they come to a stop after the SS Officer announces they have already came 42 miles. elizer and his father take turns falling asleep in a shed as elizer stays awake watching people all around him die. His father smiles and elizer says that he will always remember that smile. Whwen they finnaly arrive to Gleiwitz they all crowd in to the barrack.

The train is crowded with people both dead and alive. Elizers father is near but does not respond to him and seems dead. The train stops the SS officers demand that corpses be thrown out. two men begin to throw elizers father out but he revives him by viciously slapping and screaming desperately in his face. The prisoners travel for ten days only eating snow. Day is like night.

Prisinors are counted and told to go to the showers, so weak that it is difficult for the guards to get them to move. Elizers father takes him to a pile of snow and tells him that he can no longer take the pain, even after surviving for so long, they argue for a long time. The sirens go off and everyone immediately falls asleep. his father tells him that they are no longer feeding the sick because they are going to die anyways. January 29,1945 Elizers father had been replaced by another invalid and had beed taken to the crematory. elizer dosent cry and deep down fells freed by his fathers death

Eliezer remains at Buchenwald until april 11. He has nothing to say after the last 3 months after his father died.He has became emotionless. On april 11 at 6 pm the first american tank arrived they are free all they can think about is food, clothes and sex. he becomes deathly ill with food poisoning and was in the hospital for 2 weeks. and when he got just enough strength he look in the mirror and saw just the image of a corpse without a soul.