Elie’s relationship is the strongest and most loving relationship of them all but he also feels that his father is sometimes a burden but keep by his side. He depends on his father for support, and his love for his father allows him to carry on. During the long run to Gleiwitz, he says, "My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me (from allowing myself to die)…. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his only support." Eliezer had many opportunities to dispose of his father this is shown when he saves his father from being thrown out of the train and keeps feeding his father when he was really ill. Eliezer had taken on the father roll from the start of the camps and this is shown during the run to Gleiwitz, while they were having a break in the snow Eliezer took care of his father, telling him to sleep first. Eliezer particularly feels guilt and sadness after his father's death. Despite the love and care he has shown his father, Eliezer feels that he has somehow sacrificed his father for his own safety. Their relationship demonstrates that Eliezer's love and camaraderie are stronger forces of survival than his instinct for self- preservation.
Meir and his father had a loving relationship but starvation took its toll and Meir ended up killing his father for a piece of bread. Meir’s father got a piece of bread that had grabbed from the pile of fighting people. As he was moving away his own son Meir jumped on him and brutally bashed his father killing him in the fight for survival. While killing his own father the young son also gets killed over a scramble for the same piece of bread and father and son lie dead next to each other. “Meir. Meir my boy! Don’t you recognize me? I’m our father….you’re hurting me…..you’re killing your father! I’ve got some bread….for you too…..for you too…” This shows how under the duress of war, concentration camps, starvation and torture, loving relationships can be destroyed.
Rabbi Eliahou and his son had stuck together through good and bad, selection, concentration camps and starvation for 3 years, but when it seem the end is near, fate had separated them. Eliahou’s sons, strive for survival got the better of him and he deserted his father during the run to Gleiwitz. His son noticed that his father was losing ground, limping, staggering to the back, letting the distance between them grow greater. “He had felt that his father was growing weak, he had believed that the end was near and sought the separation on order to get rid of the burden, to free himself from an encumbrance which could lesson his own chances of survival.” Eliahou thought that it was an accident and they got separated by mistake but we know different. . Their relationship demonstrates that Eliahou’s sons love and camaraderie could be overcome by the forces of survival and self- preservation.
In this novel of war, starvation and torture, faith, silence and man’s inhumanity to man we have seen that the worst of conditions can take their toll on even the most loving relationships. Eliahou and his son were separated because of the sons strive for survival feeling that the only way he would survive would to be, to remove his father. Meir and his father were separated by the starvation as Meir felt that he would survive if he could eat the bread his father had got, but in doing so he beat his father to death and then was killed for the same bit of bread him self. Elie’s relationship is the strongest and most loving relationship of them all but he also feels that his father is sometimes a burden but keep by his side. He depends on his father for support, and his love for his father allows him to carry on. This shows how under the duress of war, concentration camps, starvation and torture, loving relationships can be destroyed, along with life.
