Quote 73
Pressed tightly against one another, in an effort to resist the cold, our heads empty and heavy, our brains a whirlwind of decaying memories. Our minds numb with indifference. Here or elsewhere, what did it matter? Die today or tomorrow, or later? The night was growing longer, never-ending.
When at last a grayish light appeared on the horizon, it revealed a tangle of human shapes, heads sunk deeply between the shoulders, crouching, piled one on top of the other, like a cemetery covered with snow. In the early dawn light, I tried to distinguish between the living and those who were no more. But there was barely a difference. My gaze remained fixed on someone who, eyes wide open, stared into space. His colorless face was covered with a layer of frost and snow. (98)
Eliezer finds that among his fellow prisoners, there is very little difference between the living and the dead; the dead are dead and the living are but living dead, without hope.
Quote 74
One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.
The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me. (9.25-27)
Though liberated physically, the presence of death has never left Eliezer throughout his life.
Quote 75
From that moment on, everything happened very quickly. The race toward death had begun.
First edict: Jews were prohibited form leaving their residences for three days, under penalty of death.
[…]
The same day, the Hungarian police burst into every Jewish home in town: a Jew was henceforth forbidden to own gold, jewelry, or any valuables. Everything had to be handed over to the authorities, under penalty of death. […]
Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yellow star. (1.66-72)
The Jews of Sighet lose their freedom in a gradual process; they become restricted to their houses, lose the right to own valuables, and wear identifying markers. Eventually, they are confined into ghettos.