Select a passage from Chapter Three (pages 29-46) that you felt illustrates how Elie Wiesel and his fellow intern mates were brutalized and dehumanized by their Nazi captors. Explain why you picked this particular passage.

SS officer Dr. Mengele, who uses a baton to pick out who will remain alive and who will go to the crematory. Dr. Mengele looks cruel yet intelligent, and Eliezer tells him that he is eighteen and a farmer. Eliezer watches in horror as a truck full of children drives up to a giant, fiery ditch and the children are put into the flames. Eliezer's father is sad that he is going to see his only son consumed by fire, and he tells Eliezer that humanity is not present in the concentration camps. As the parade of men starts to recite the prayer for the dead for themselves and his father begins to weep, for the first time Eliezer feels himself revolt against God. The men march closer and closer to a fiery ditch, but at the last minute, they swerve away from the fiery ditch. Eliezer says he will never forget that night and the children's faces that he saw burned in flames. On that night his faith was consumed, and the silence of the night made him lose his will to live.

I believe this section sums up Eliezer's initiation into the camp. It was horrific from the first moment, and the dehumanization of the prisoners was constant.