(Wiesel, 9) The ghetto life was eventually adjusted to and just as a sort of normality settled in, the family was uprooted to Auschwitz.
Shortly after arriving at Auschwitz, the young Wiesel was separated from his mother and younger sister (Wiesel, 27) He hardly had time to consider the fact that he might have been, and would later find out had, seen them for the last time before he was whisked off to the first selection. In the large group, there was a single man going around and asking people asking their age. He stumbled upon Wiesel and asked how old he was. Wiesel reported that he was not yet 15 years old and the man disagreed. "No. Eighteen."" He said. Wiesel argued briefly, not grasping the reason the man was telling him different then what he knew. "Fool. Listen to what I say,"" the man said, then moved on to Wiesel's father who he instructed to report as a 40 year old. The man, a fellow prisoner, quickly disappeared into the crowd. (Wiesel, 27-28) When asked, Wiesel not only testified to being 18, he also said he was a farmer instead of a student. (Wiesel, 29).
Both he and his father made it through the inspection where upon they were sent to the same barracks under the rule of a Polish prisoner. They were fearful at first, but the man turned out to be kind and spoke the first human words that the exhausted men had heard since their explosion from the ghetto. (Wiesel, 38-39).
Wiesel was assigned to work in a warehouse for electrical equipment. (Wiesel, 47) He would lose his gold crown to a Polish foreman named Franek ordered Wiesel to give it to him. Eventually, Wiesel had to relent and surrender his crown, which he had hoped to keep as a safety in case he was ever desperate to bribe someone. Though he was treated better by the foreman for a short time, it was only days before Franek was transferred, along with all the other Poles. (Wiesel, 53-54) .
As time went on and the bombs neared, he realized that he, as well as his fellow prisoners, weren't afraid of the explosions.