In the book, Night by Ellie Wiesel , I found it really surprising that in the beginning the Germans were nice and treated the Jews fairly, but then they gradually the forced them into ghettos. The Jews actually enjoyed the ghettos,and thought of them like their own little communities and were happy to stay there. Then they were forced to walk to other ghettos because they were being shipped off to extermination camps where they would most likely be killed if they were too old or too young to work. Elie Wiesel started losing hope when he was forced to leave his mom and sister. Everyone else in the box cart had been losing hope since Madame Schachter started screaming about seeing fire and freaking them out even though there was nothing there. When the German officer lost his temper and started yelling and screaming, they finally realized what was happening. They were scared and knew they were probably going to die. When a Jewish man came up and asked how old they were, I think he saved them by telling them to say they were 18 and 40 which would not be too old but also not too young to work. "here, kid, how old are you? it was one of the prisoners who asked me this. I could not see his face, but his voice tense and weary. i'm not quite fifteen yet. no. eighteen but i'm not, I said fifteen fool listen to what I say then he questioned my father who replied: fifty. the other grew more furious than ever. no not fifty. forty. do you understand? eighteen and forty he disappeared into the night."(30) It was surprising how mad the man got when they said their actual age when they were talking to him.