On the evening of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) the Jews in Buna gather for a prayer. Eliezer, who once lived for prayer and religious study, rebels against this. He feels that humans are, in a sense, greater than God, stronger than God, to still pray to a God who allows such horrors. "I was the accuser, God the accused… I stood amid the praying congregation, observing it like a stranger." Eliezer shares a silent, powerful moment of sadness and understanding with his father. For Yom Kippur, when Jews traditionally fast, his father forbids Eliezer from fasting. Eliezer no longer believes in such rituals, anyway. The prisoners must go through a "selection" when they come back from work. The veterans say the newer prisoners are lucky—not long before, corpses were collected by the hundreds each day, and selections took place every week. The head of the block tells them to move around beforehand, to give color to their skin and to show they are healthy. Dr. Mengele watches the prisoners go past him and occasionally writes down the tattooed number of one of them. A few of the feebler ones are written down, but Eliezer is not. However, no one is immediately taken away.A few days later, the head of the block reads off the numbers of those who have been selected to die. Eliezer's father is among them, as is Akiba Drumer, the singer. His father hurriedly gives Eliez . When he returns to the camp with his work group that evening, his father is still there, having convinced the Nazis that he is still fit for work.
