In the short novel, Night by Elie Wiesel, the author discusses an event of tremendous scarring effect to him and all those unfortunate to be caught in it’s scourge, The Holocaust. From the new age diaspora, death marches, cremation, and many other tyrannical actions from the German Reich that left all witnesses traumatized. These horrendous acts brought out a primal version of self preservation in the prisoners. The prisoners self preservation is displayed through their fight for rations of bread, their relentless labor to avoid the path to death that is tested by Dr. Mengele, leading the prisoners ultimately to the crematorium. The scarce rations provided by the Nazi’s were the only reason most of the prisoners even attempted to stay alive. Similar to that of animals in the wild, they would fight amongst each other, regardless of heritage or past relations. “A worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs” pure animalistic desperation bred from the cruel removal of basic human needs. This cruelty, in turn, came with a much crueler fate for the captives as they fight to control their insatiable desire …show more content…
With swiftness and the carelessness of a sociopath, Mengele would frequently come and go throughout the many camps and sentence Jews to death. All with no direct cause but it was assumed that those seen as too unfit to carry out work at an efficient rate would be disposed of without a second thought. Ordering and killing indirectly he came and went like death itself as he would mark down the numbers of the captives. “Dr. Mengele was holding a list: our numbers. He nodded to the Blockälteste: ‘we can begin!’ as if this were a game”. The epitome of heinousness as he directed both women, men, children, and adults alike to the rather inhumane fate that is the