This brief chapter carries the ghoulish atmosphere to extremes as more men sink toward death and are matter-of-factly tossed aside. Wiesel's intensification of the dangers of violence, hunger, apathy, and cold blurs the lines between bare survival and death. Widespread disinterest in survival within the ranks of dying inmates parallels the callous games workmen play by tossing bread to starving people. Obviously drawn to the passing convoy of prisoners out of curiosity rather than by pity, German workers appear as indifferent to the plight of Jews as are the SS guards. In his later writings and speeches, Wiesel condemns apathy and indifference as the greatest of sins because stifled compassion precipitated complacency and inaction against the war crimes rampant in Hitler's monstrous Third Reich.
The contrast between Meir Katz's loss of hope and the mob of hungry men clawing for food depicts the near-death bestiality that supplants normal human behavior. To Elie, prisoners become "wild beasts of prey, with animal hatred in their eyes; an extraordinary vitality had seized them, sharpening their teeth and nails." The unbridled savagery versus corpse-like inactivity colors a panorama of action versus inaction. At the separation point that elevates humanity from depravity, Wiesel prefigures Segment 8, the arrival at Buchenwald, the Third Reich's oldest concentration camp and the final challenge to Elie's ebbing strength.
