Night: Section 9

Eli remains at Buchenwald until April 11. He has nothing to say of these last months in the concentration camps because after his father's death, he became indifferent and emotionless, concerned only with eating. He is transferred to the children's block.
On April 5, the SS guard is late to roll call, and everyone knows something must have happened. After two hours, an announcement goes out that all Jews must go to the assembly place. They to go to, but prisoners tell them to go back to their blocks warning them that the Germans are going to shoot everyone. On the way back, they learn that "the camp resistance organization had decided not to abandon the Jews and was going to prevent their being liquidated." The next day there is a roll call and the head of Buchenwald announces that the camp is to be liquidated. Ten blocks of deportees would be evacuated each day, and no more food would be distributed.
On April 10, the remaining 20,000 prisoners are to be evacuated and the camp blown up. A siren alert occurs and the evacuation is postponed to the next day. Nobody had eaten anything for six days. The next morning the resistance movement suddenly battles the SS in the assembly place. The SS flees, and resistance takes charge of the camp. At six in the evening, the first American tank arrives at Buchenwald.
The first thing the newly-freed prisoners thought of was food. Then, they thought of clothes and sex. Nobody thought of revenge. Three days after Buchenwald was liberated, Eli became deathly ill with food poisoning and spent two weeks in the hospital. After he got a little bit better, he gathered enough strength to look at himself in the mirror. He had not seen his reflection since living in the ghetto. When he looks at himself, he sees the eyes of a corpse, and that image has never left him.