June 23, 1942, marked the first day that the Nazis used gas chambers to kill Jewish prisoners in he Auschwitz concentration camp. What does Death say he did differently this day?

From the text:

In complete desolation, I looked at the world above. I watched the sky as it turned from silver to gray to the color of rain. Even the clouds were trying to get away.

Death says he picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. He kissed their weary, poisoned cheeks; listened to their last, gasping cries; heard their vanishing words; and watched their visions of love and freed them from their fear.