The book opens in 1944 in the town of Sighet, Transylvania (now part of Romania). Eliezer Wiesel, the narrator, is a studious 15-year-old boy whose life is upended by the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Nazi death camps.

Eliezer and his family are crammed into a cattle car and taken to Auschwitz concentration camp. Upon arrival, Eliezer and his father are separated from his mother and sisters, whom they never see again. They are sent to the Auschwitz labor camp Buna, where Eliezer witnesses prisoners being brutalized and worked to death.

In 1945, as the Allies are advancing, Eliezer and his father are forced to join a death march to Buchenwald concentration camp. His father becomes increasingly frail and eventually dies after being beaten by a guard. Three days after his father's death, Buchenwald is liberated by American troops.

The memoir explores Eliezer's struggle to maintain faith in God and humanity in the face of unimaginable cruelty. He is forced to witness children being burned alive, starvation, beatings, torture, and mass executions. By the end, Eliezer has been dehumanized, having experienced a complete loss of faith and any belief in a just God.

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