Once the Wiesels are rounded up and put in cattle cars with 76 others, they have already been weakened by their journey. All things that we as human beings take for granted, such as water, food, a flat surface to sleep on, and even a semi-private place to relieve ourselves was taken from these people. Even being sent from place to place in cattle cars is significant. They were no longer treated or considered human beings, they had become sub-human in the eyes of the Nazi's, their captors, and were treated accordingly. The Jews had one thing that could not be stripped from them, their faith, but even this would understandably waver with time. The question of how a loving and caring God could allow such evil to prevail is a continuous question raised by Wiesel throughout the book.
I find it unbelievably self-righteous for someone like myself to criticize the Jews, and say that if I were in the same situation, I would surely fight the Nazis. Imagine finally arriving at a camp, after being stripped of everything that we have that makes us "cultured" individuals, being separated from our mother and sister, as Wiesel was, and our first experience of our new "home", is seeing babies, children, men, and women being burned alive. In war, women and children are usually spared, but these were the first to be murdered by the Nazis. The only thing they were guilty of was being Jewish. Others were murdered for nothing more than falling when running to another camp. Would I risk rebelling against people who were obviously looking for any reason to kill me? I don't think so. Life was the only thing that surviving Jews were left with. The Nazis systematically broke the Jews spirit down which in turn ripped their faith in God. This void is best illustrated when the prisoners in the camp were freed and Elie looks at himself in the mirror and sees a corpse. His soul had been stolen and destroyed by the Nazis.
