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Describe the scene of leaving the ghetto in Night by Elie Wiesel.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, the Jewish people of the town Sighet in Transylvania were forced to leave the ghetto they had been forced into earlier when the Nazis took over the town. They left on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as the sun was coming up. The people gathered in the streets, ready to go. The local Jewish Council had made a deal with the Hungarian police that the Jews would organize their own departure. 


The townspeople went to their main synagogue, the Jewish place of worship, which had been vandalized and desecrated by the Nazis. They stayed there all day and night, crowded together.



"There were so many of us that we could scarcely breathe. We spent a horrible twenty-four hours there. There were men downstairs; women on the first floor. It was Saturday; it was as though we had come to attend the service. Since no one could go out, people were relieving themselves in a corner" (Wiesel 20).



The next morning the Jewish people of Sighet walked to the train station. They were forced into cattle cars--80 people to a car and given some bread and pails of water. They were warned that if anyone tried to escape, he/she would be shot.



"Two Gestapo officers strolled about on the platform, smiling: all things considered, everything had gone off very well.


A prolonged whistle split the air. The wheels began to grind. We were on our way" (Wiesel 20).


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