Fire

On a train to a Birkenau a women who had lost her mind, and who also lost her family after an accidental separation getting sent off to the camps, was yelling about a fire. She was staring out the window yelling about a non-existent fire. She was beat for yelling because she would not stop yelling at nothing. But once they got closer to the camps there actually was a fire this time. It was a burning chimney jutting out from a corner of a camp off in the distance. Elie Wiesel said, "And as the train stopped, this time we saw flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky" (Elie Wiesel, Night, 28). Mrs. Schachter was yelling about a fire the whole ride but no one knew what it had meant. Still no one knew what the fire meant but there was a horrible stench in the air of burning flesh.

Fire has wreaked havoc on this world for millions and millions of years. But sometimes fire is not always man made and sometimes it is a good thing for forests and good things came from it. But not this fire. The fire coming from the chimney was made from pure hatred and evil. This fire was used to burn the Jews transported to these camps if they were running out of space or if they were dead. Its disgusting that people could do this to other people. An inmate said to Elie and his father, "Over there. Do you see the chimney over there? Do you see it? And the flames, do you see them? ... Over there, that's where they will take you. Over there will be your grave ... You will be burned! Burned to a cinder! Turned into ashes!" (Elie Weisel, Night, 31). The chimney is where they will burn the prisoners in the camps. Elie says its a horrible way to die and would much rather thrust himself into the electric fence. His father does not object to that. This man would rather see his son thrown into an electric fence than watch him burn to a crisp. He would much rather never see his son again and have him go with his mom rather than seeing the amount of pain they will go through during their stay in the concentration camps.
This fire coming from the chimney is not a good fire. Its a horrible fire that has killed many people. The guards of the camps even make Jews work in the chimney and make them burn other Jews, their own people, their own innocence. What the Germans did to the Jews is just awful. I never knew or understood how bad this actually was until i read the first part of Night. It's horrible and disgusting. Elie saw men throwing children, and babies into a burning ditch. I know i wouldn't be the same person if i saw something like that. It had to be traumatizing. This brings pity and sadness to me. I can't believe human beings had to go through this. And eventually after seeing it day after day it must really get to them, seeing children thrown into a ditch, and the smell of burning flesh, knowing that that could be one your friends that's floating around in the ashes above you. This should have never happened and should never happen again.