I really enjoyed this week’s reading. I have heard a lot of facts and stories about life at that time for those who suffered, but I have never heard a first account of not only the Holocaust in general but the most infamous concentration camp of all time. It was really intense for me while reading this book. Going with Elie through his memories of that whole process was a perspective I’ll never forget. You really felt like you were getting a glimpse into what he was feeling moment to moment. I really liked the title of the book as well. I feel like night symbolizes that despair that is the common theme throughout the story and that time in general. One quote from the book that really stuck out to me was, “The Germans were already in our town, the Fascists were already in power, the verdict was already out- and the Jews of …show more content…
Josef Mengele, also known as the ‘Angel of Death’, was an SS physician who was sent to Auschwitz to not only distinguish the inmates who were fit to work and the ones that were not fit but to carry out human experimentation among the camp inmates as well. With a simple swipe of the cane to the left or right, hundreds of thousands of people were so causally sent to their death. Although there were many physicians at Auschwitz who performed the same procedures, this instantaneous decision of fate for all the inmates was somehow more distinct for Dr. Menegle. He was very interested in twin studies. One experiment he gathered up sets of twins and injected them with chloroform to instantly stop their hearts and then dissected them to make his extensive notes. Although he was focused on twin studies, for twenty-one months he ran various cruel experiments on any inmate who he saw fit. In a specific set of experiments, he sought out to get data on the ‘degeneration’ of Jewish and Gypsy blood by collecting body tissues. Just like Elie, the image of this dark ominous figure symbolized much more than a man in a cane to those who experienced