What are the main interactions and descriptions Paul has at the training camp?

In Chapter Eight, Paul settles into a routine: he plays piano at night, spends little time socializing, and absorbs himself in nature. A Russian prison camp is adjacent to theirs. Paul observes the enemy prisoners' "honest peasant" faces as they feebly search and grovel for food. Most of the Germans ignore them, though sometimes the prisoners' groveling angers them and they kick them. The prisoners also trade their superior boots for food, although now most have few possessions left to barter.

Paul frequently guards the Russians, watching them mass around the fence in near-silence. They are less lively than they used to be. Paul feels that if he knew them better, his emotions might turn into sympathy for them. He understands that powerful men in politics have decided that the Russians are their enemy, yet he feels that one can find greater enemies even within Germany. Paul is frightened of these thoughts, yet he knows within them lies the "only possibility of existence after this annihilation of all human feeling." He gives the Russians some cigarettes. One morning Paul stands guard as the Russians sing and bury yet another of their own. A prisoner who speaks some German plays a melancholy violin for Paul and the other prisoners.