Journey to Buchenwald

When the night was drawing to a close and the light began to appear on the horizon, Elie saw the tangled and mangled mess of human shapes crammed into the train car. He searched amongst the faces, trying to separate the living from the dead. The train suddenly came to a stop in an open field. The order came from the SS to "[t]hrow out all the dead! Outside, all the corpses!" Everyone began to look at his neighbor, searching for someone to throw out and create more space. Two men came to Elie's father, but Elie was not convinced that he was dead yet. He slapped his face and rubbed his hands, crying "Father! Father! Wake up." At last, he half opened his eyes and the two men left him. When the job was done, twenty corpses had been thrown from the train, forever left in a snowy Polish field.

The train resumed its journey and continued on for hours. Here and there, the convoy would pass through a German village or town and the laborers walking to work in the morning would stop and look as the train passed. One worker threw as scrap of bread into one of the cars. A stampede erupted and the fighting between the men was ferocious. Elie described the fighting men as "[b]easts of prey unleashed, animal hate in their eyes." Soon a crowd had formed along the track and pieces of bread were flying into the train cars from all directions. The spectacle was watched with great curiosity by the workers, as they had never seen such cargo before. In the end, a few were killed and all that was gained was the insignificant scraps of a few workers.

At another point in the journey, one of the train's passengers got up and yelled for everyone to start moving. "We must not remain sitting. We shall freeze to death." he said. The others proceeded to get up and took a few steps in each direction, shuffling back and forth, trying to bring warmth back into their limbs. That same night, they reached their destination. As the guards ordered the inmates off the train, the dead were simply left behind. Only those who could stand were let off. What is most upsetting about this situation is the shear number of dead and dieing that were lost during the journey. When the train had set out from the field near Gleiwitz, about one hundred had been on board. Upon arriving at Buchenwald, only twelve got off.