God lives in every man, believer or not. He lives in our soul, if we want to pray to we must reach within ourselves. He prays for the strength to ask the right questions. You can ask for simple answers all say long but as soon as you ask the right question. Things will change...

Everyone didn't believe that the Germans would be able to get at them (Jews), that they couldn't wipe out an entire people. And yet the Germans came... They were at first distant but polite but then they arrested Jewish leaders. They began to desriminate the Jews, then use them as a labor force. Finally the Germans were going to deport them but they had no idea where....

The woman, Madame Schachter, was screaming in the cattle cart filled with people. Screaming "Look at the flames!" she wanted them to see the terror she saw, the flames that would eat them. They couldnt see the flames, or maybe they didnt want to... Maybe they didnt want to belive that there were being brought to terrible flames to die.

They saw babies being burned in the crematory. Children dying, burned alive... They were going to die in the fire. They wished it was a nightmare, they prayed it wasn't real. Men began praying the death prayer for themselves. There is nothing here that dose not belong in a nightmare. This should not happen in real life.

They were at Auschwitz... A death camp. A concentration camp. The German SS wanted them to understand they were not at a resting place, they were in hell. He wanted them to remember where they were. If they were set free and the war ended he wanted them to remember. He wanted to engrave it in their mind. They were at Auschwitz. And they never forgot, and they never forget that they never forgot.

They are in the concentration camp. They are made to work, and used as a mass labor force. Everywhere the post "Work is Liberty". What they mean is not that by working you will one day be free of the camp. They mean that if you work you won't be killed. If you work you won't be tossed in the flames. If you work, keep working or you will be tossed away.

Elie and his father were able to keep together, unlike so many families. They were able to get into a good block. Even though they would get beat every now and then they hadn't been killed, not yet at least.... They had been lucky in a very unlucky place. I dont know how they got so lucky but I'm happy for them that they were. It is possible that without his father Elie would not have been able to go on.

Sometimes people anger you or beat you and their is nothing you can do. You feel the anger rising and you want to lash out at the person. But this will almost always get you in a worst position then you were in. Sometimes you have to hold your anger in at the time it wants to burst. You have to hold it for the moment where it will have the most effect. Where you might be able to do something. Elie, in his anger, wanted to get back at the Kapo who beat him but it would have gotten him beat worst. So he had to wait. Grit his teeth and wait.

You can only imagine what the people seeing the hangings felt. They saw innocent humans being hanged for trying to survive. They had been told all their lives that God is good, God is all powerful, God will provide. But here they are watching a child being hanged after being tortured. How can you not question the presence of God after that... A small, beautiful, little boy tortured and hanged... I can not imagine it, or maybe i just don't want to. And when they saw the boy up close after he was hang but still not dead someone said "Here He is... Hanging on the gallows." He sees the Nazis killing God.

After all the horror he's going through he could no longer believe that there was a Almighty watching over him. He no longer worshiped God. He gave up his religion, how could he not. People were being starved and murdered by the day. Strangers, friends, family all dead or dying. But when he forgot God he felt an emptiness in him. He felt something missing that wasnt missing before.

He was being evacuated. His last night in Buna. He though back to the other last nights. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night on the train, and, now the last night in Buna. He was wondering how much more of his life will be filled with last nights. I would wonder the same. I would wonder about my last night as a teenager, last night with my family, last night alive... He was leaving Buna but this was not good. He would be sent to another camp to be worked close to death yet again.

They had run almost 50 miles... 50 miles. 50 miles in several feet of snow. 50 miles in freezing temperature. 50 miles while starving. People dying with every step. Men trampling people who fell. Fathers lost their sons, men lost their brothers to the cold. Elie said the snow was warm when he laid down on it. Imagine it being so cold that snow becomes warm for you. When they finally reached Gleiwitz a young boy named Juliek who played the violin started to play Beethoven. Playing his soul out, playing to a dead crowd. He played to the end of his small life... Eliezer wont ever forget that and neither will I.

They we stuck in a roofless cattle train, snow pounding down. Starving, freezing, no food, only snow as water. Men dying left and right. Then they stopped at a town for a bit and someone through a piece of bread into a cart and watched the men fight to the death for it. Many more people did the same. When someone threw a piece of bread into the cart with Elie men dived after it and one man was able to snag a part of it and take it out of the bawl, but then he was killed for the bread. Killed by his own son... A boy killed his own father for a piece of bread. the boy was killed for the bread as well and he laid down by his slain father.

His father is dying. Cold, tired, and sick he can't hold on any longer. Elie doesn't want to loose him, nobody would, Elie tries to keep him alive but none of the doctors can help. A man comes to Elie and tells him "Don't forget you're in a concentration camp. Here, everyone must fight for himself and not think of anyone else." He tells him to leave his father and let him die. There is nothing anyone can do. He died on January 28, 1945 and now Elie is alone.

He was free... Finally free. But it seemed nobody wanted revenge, only food. They were so empty of emotion and life they only cared about food. Elie was in a hospital after getting food poisoning for two weeks. When he recovered he wanted to see himself, he hadn't since he left the ghetto. The person he saw looking back at him was a corpse. The eyes of him are forever stuck in Elizer's memory.