Of watching the little pipelthe camp was weeping!what caused feeling of guilt

href="">Elie
Wiesels book href="">Night
chronicles the horrors he endured in the Nazi death camps. People became inured to death because
it was all around them all the time. For instance, Elies interaction with another prisoner,
Juliek, shows just how much people became inured to death. Elie and Juliek watch a hanging.
Juliek whispers, will it be over soon? I'm hungry."

These feelings
also make them turn away from G-d. Wiesel asks himself, What are You, my God? I thought
angrily. However, every now and then, the prisoners are able to recall their humanity. One such
time occurs during the execution of a young boy with a delicate and beautiful face. Called
the little pipel, the boy was beloved by the inmates. Suspecting that he had helped sabotage a
power plant, the SS condemn him to death. The little pipel is hanged.

One day, as we returned from work, we saw three gallows, three
black ravens, erected on the Appelplatz. Roll call. The SS surrounding us, machine guns aimed at
us: the usual ritual. Three prisoners in chainsand, among them, the little pipel, the sadeyed
angel.

It soon becomes apparent that the boy is not dead,
but hanging from the noose and dying slowly. Wiesel writes:

the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still
breathing€¦

And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between
life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He
was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet
extinguished.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "For God's sake,
where is God?" And from within me, I heard a voice answer: "Where He is? This is
wherehanging here from this gallows€¦ "

That night, the soup tasted of
corpses.

The camp was weeping over the unnecessary death
of a young boy and over the fact that he remained strong and brave until the end. He did not
tell the SS anything when they tortured him and he did not break down before they hanged him.
The prisoners are repulsed by this event, not only because they loved the little pipel, but also
because he was so young. The soup tasted of corpses that night because it is virtually
impossible for the prisoners to get the image of the little pipel out of their minds and they
are sick over his death.

Moreover, they likely feel some remorse over his
death and even, ironically, survivors guilt. The reason that this is ironic is that, as
prisoners in a death camp, they are barely surviving themselves. In fact, they are merely
holding on to life by the slightest thread.