In this section of the book, we see how the town reacts to information the town receives about the war that is going on. The Jews chose to be ignorant and chose to believe that the war wouldn’t reach their town. When Moshe the Beatle returned from his journey, he told everyone in the town about the terror that the Nazi’s caused to other humans. The people didn’t believe in his story; they felt that he was trying to make them pity him. Everyone in the town felt that there was no need to worry as the Germans would lose the war and everything would be over. When the Jews heard that the Germans were going to be taking over the Hungarian territory, the Jews chose no to believe again because they felt that they were the exception to the Germans taking over them. They thought that the Germans wouldn’t want to invade their town and wouldn’t venture any further then Budapest. This shows us how the Jews were very ignornant by not listening to the stories that Moshe the Beatle told them about and taking actions towards this so that they were captured and put into concentration camps. But because of the ignorance, they ended up being captured and were made prisoners of the Nazis.
Section 2 Theme:Passiveness
In this section of the book, when the idea of death is brought upon the Jews, they start to become more passive about it. These Jews, were the same people who were willing to take a bullet for one another in the town, but now they stand back and stay silent and watch their loved ones be beaten and terrorized. They have become so passive about it, which the Jews have started to feel no pain for it anymore. They were too afraid that if they did something wrong, they would be beaten like the other Jews. Overall the Jews have lost faith in them and become passive towards their own humanity.
Section 3 Theme: Chance
One of the themes in the section is how chance takes over and plays into the game of survival. We notice when the prisoners were running from the concentration camp that some people died from the cold or from being trampled on, but others were lucky to stay alive. It was all left to chance. The prisoners in the camps left everything to chance because they couldn’t make their own decisions so they let fate come to them. Some injuries occurred because of accidents, which led to their fate, but ultimately everything for the prisoners, including Eliezer was left to chance.
Section 4 Theme: Mortality
Throughout the novel, Elie’s morality is tested, especially in this section. After Elie has witness so many deaths especially having seen so many sons turn on their fathers, he becomes in the situation where he has turned on his own father. Throughout the novel, Elie always is thinking of ways to get his father on his deathbed, even though he has never acted on them, he still becomes very distressed by these thoughts. When Elie’s father dies, he says that he has a relief and a huge weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. We can see how the camp had taken away Elie’s morality. Every prisoner in the camp seemed to struggle to hold his or her own morality and become sane, where they lost their emotions that made them human beings. They started to lose their own morality and become like the Nazis where they would take control of one another and brutally beat each other for survival, which is inhuman.