 The dentist is hanged, and Elie’s response is to be pleased, because it means his gold crown is saved.  Elie’s father is beaten by Idek with an iron bar, and Elie only thinks of how to get farther away from him, and is angry with his father for not knowing how to avoid Idek’s outbreak.  A dying man dragged himself on his stomach to reach an unguarded cauldron of soup, and was shot just as he reached it.  The prisoners were forced to watch a hanging, and Juliek’s response was to wonder if it would take long, because he was hungry.  The prisoners were forced to watch the hanging of a little boy who took half an hour to die. When a man next to Elie asked, “Where is God now?” Elie thought “He is hanging here on this gallows.”

Choose one of those events, and write a one paragraph response. There is no right or wrong answer to this—simply write a personal response to what you read. What does it make you think? What questions do you have? How do you feel about this event?

“Bread, soup—these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.” What is the hungriest you have ever been? Can you imagine being as hungry as Elie describes here? Why or why not? Why does Elie despise his own reaction when Idek attacks Elie’s father? Can you understand his response at all? Why are the prisoners so affected when the Dutch Oberkapo is hanged? What is the reason the Gestapo give for his hanging? After the hanging, one of the men remarks, “Where is God now?” Elie’s interior voice answers, “He is hanging here on this gallows.” Explain what Wiesel is suggesting.