What choices does each man have at Auschwitz?

In ,describes the
process of "selections" in which the sick and dying prisoners were weeded out, leaving
the healthy ones to work. After one of these selections, an SS officer comes to the barracks
into which they have been herded and gives them a short speech. There is only one choice for
each man to make at Auschwitz, he tells them: work or die. Auschwitz it a concentration camp,
not a convalescent home. It does not matter how ill they areif they do not work, the chimneys
and the crematorium await them.

Of course, Wiesel makes it clear that this
choice is not a choice for many inmates. They are too weak and ill to work, so they have no
choice but to die. This is emphasized by the fact that soon after the SS officer's speech,
Wiesel's father, who has been suffering from colic, is slapped so hard that he falls to the
ground for daring to ask to use the bathroom. It is not even a Nazi officer who administers this
level of violenceit is a fellow inmate who has been put in charge.