Elie Wiesel · 1960 · exile

Elie Wiesel's memoir of 1944-45: deported from his Transylvanian town to Auschwitz as a boy of fifteen, through Buna and a death march in the snow to Buchenwald, keeping his failing father alive as long as he can. A record of what the world let happen.

1. 1
   Sighet

   Wiesel's hometown in Transylvania, where the memoir opens. The Jews are herded into ghettos, then loaded onto cattle cars in the spring of 1944 - the last convoy east.

2. 2
   Auschwitz

   The Birkenau ramp, where the family is torn apart on arrival. His mother and younger sister go one way; Elie and his father are sent to the barracks, and to the work details.

3. 3
   Buna

   Also called Monowitz, the Auschwitz sub-camp where father and son labour in a warehouse. Months of hunger, selections, and a slow inversion of who cares for whom.

4. 4
   Gleiwitz

   As the Red Army nears, the SS drive the prisoners out on a death march through the snow - forty-two miles in a night, the falling shot where they lie. Three days in a barracks, then the cattle cars.

5. 5
   Buchenwald

   A ten-day journey west in open wagons, living on snow. Here his father dies of dysentery and a beating while Elie lies silent above. The camp is liberated by the U.S. Army that April.