Towards the end of Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie is looking everywhere for his father. When he finally finds him, Mr. Wiesel is very sick with a high fever. He has dysentery, a disease that runs rampant in the concentration camps due to poor sanitation and hygiene.
Dysentery is treatable, but in the camps, it was often left untreated because the Nazis did not care if their prisoners died. Other than fever, it involves severe abdominal cramps, diarrhea, vomiting, chills, and dehydration. It is the dehydration that usually leads to death, and this is what happened to Elie's father in Night. Mr. Wiesel is not given any food or water because the Nazis do not want to waste nourishment on someone who is probably going to die.
"'They didn't give us anything. . . they said that if we were ill we should die soon anyway and it would be a pity to waste the food. I can't go on anymore. . .'" (Wiesel 102).
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