A significant moment in which s relationship
with his father Shlomo shifts in is when Shlomo is beaten by one of the
prison guards during his and Elies shift counting electrical fittings in a civilian warehouse.
Though certainly not the first time Shlomo encounters violence at the hands of a guard, in this
moment Elie describes his reaction to his fathers beating as that of anger toward his father
rather than toward the guard. Elie feels that his father should have been able to avoid the
guards rage. He writes,
...if I felt anger at that moment, it was not
directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldnt he have avoided Ideks wrath? That was what
life in a concentration camp had made of me€¦
In the section prior, Elie
expresses the exact opposite sentiment after witnessing violence against his father. While in
the barracks, or living quarters, Shlomo asks a guard where he may find a bathroom. He is
subsequently beaten for the inquiry. Elie proceeds to shame himself for his inability to defend
his father and prevent his beating. The distinct shift between Section Three, where Elie feels
anger toward the guard, and Section Four, where he feels it toward his father, demonstrates how
quickly the camps mentally affected the familial relationships between prisoners. Elies
relationship with his father, one of comfort, of love, and of familiarity, has been turned on
its head by the concentration camp. In this nightmarish world of beatings, silencing, and
constant executions, Elie is no longer able to understand his relationship with his father, and
the camps role in this shift is what Elie seeks to prove about changing relationships. The
utterly foreign environment of the camps does not afford its prisoners the ability to operate
and relate to one another in the ways they were formerly accustomed; instead, each prisoner must
operate under a mode that ensures self preservation. Unfortunately, this mode greatly affects
Elies relationship with his father.
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