Early Sunday morning, a friendly police inspector knocks at the window to warn the Wiesels of danger. By 4 A.M., families are preparing food for the journey. At 8 A.M., Hungarian police order Jews outside and strike out indiscriminately at old and young with police clubs and rifle butts. Within two hours, all Jews stand in the streets. By 1 P.M., the first convoys begin their march out of Sighet. All day Monday, Elie's exhausted family fasts. On Thesday, the Wiesels anticipate deportation. To their relief, they are forced to resettle in the small ghetto. Elie leads the way; his father weeps. The small ghetto is littered with possessions that the first deportees abandoned in turmoil. The Wiesels move into Elie's uncle's rooms for four nights. At dawn on Saturday, after a wretched Friday night packed in the synagogue with the remaining Jews, the Wiesels join the last deportees to board railway cattle cars — eighty to a car — and depart.
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