In Chapter Four of Night by Elie Wiesel, a young prisoner is hanged before an assembly of prisoners at Buna Concentration Camp. His crime, according to the Kapo, was stealing during an alert. And for this, he faced the death penalty. Two prisoners helped in this task by pulling the chair out from under the condemned youth. As they were about to do this, the young man who had just been convicted and sentenced yelled out,
"Long live liberty! A curse upon Germany! A curse...! A cur--" (Wiesel 60)
After the hanging, all of the prisoners were ordered to take off their caps in order to pay their final respects and then walk past the hanged man. The Kapos forced each of them to fully stare at him as he swung by his neck on the hangman's rope.
The two prisoners who helped with the hanging were rewarded with a plate of soup each.
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