The Nazis decided to make a dental search to find any prisoner with gold crowns in their mouths and rip them out to exchange for money. Eliezer has continuing flashbacks from the present time to when he was in the prison camps relating the people and the horrors he had to face. For example: he meets a girl about his age when in the camp, and sees her once again when the holocaust is over. The Nazis are constantly killing resistance members and any unfit Jews. Almost daily they have to go through selections to see if they are still fit enough to go on. A young boy was taken as a slave to a resistance member, and since he was involved with it, he was publically hung in front of all Jews as a reminder to not resist. Many Jews lost their faith that day and decided God was no help to them anymore. Elie had completely given up on all hopes of a God.
The significance of the young boy dying was to symbolize the death of God. All their hope had been placed in their faith when the hard times started, but God never seemed to deliver them, so they gave up all hopes. Also, the young boy dying symbolized Eliezer's innocence dying, for he was forced to grow up so fast and not live as a young man should.
