Chapter 8 starts off with Elie and his father's arrival to Buchenwald. They are ordered into groups of five and receive the information that they will be getting a shower. Elie says that he is "fascinated" by the idea of a shower. This shows the lack of hygiene and basic luxuries that these prisoners have had. Elie's father begs Elie to let him sit down and die. Elie, who has fought death up to this point purely for his father, is frustrated with his father's lack of a will to live. He yells at his father to get up. This shows the companionship that the two have formed over this experience. They look out for each other and give each other motivation to live. After Elie and his father get some much needed rest, Elie wakes up to find his father missing. While he is looking for his father, a thought flashes in his head. A thought about what it would be like if he was alleviated from this burden of his father. He immediately feels ashamed. This shows that the temptation that many other sons faced and succumbed to in the earlier chapters is still there. Luckily, Elie has a strong relationship with his father and is able to resist the temptation to leave his father. He finds his father and rushes to get him some coffee. When Elie gives the coffee to his father, he gets a look of extreme gratitude in return. The next pages chronicle the last days of Elie's father. He is left inside the cabin and beaten by fellow inmates. At one point, he is no longer able to get up from his bead. One day when he is given no soup, Elie gives up the remainder of his soup "grudgingly". Elie then becomes disappointed in himself because he treated his father like a nuisance, like Rabbi Eliahu's son did to his father. I think that Elie was being too hard on himself. It was only natural that he should be feeling those feelings towards his father. None of us are perfect and we fall for temptation sometimes, but at least he acted on it in a way that was not harmful towards his father. They try to get a doctor's help, but the doctors will not help Elie's father. A few days later, Elie gets some advice to let his father die and take the bread and soup rations. For a split second, Elie considers the option, and immediately feels guilty. Elie's father gets worse and worse. He keeps calling for Elie to help him, but Elie cannot do anything. Then, on January 28 or 29, 1945, Elie's father passed away and was thrown in the crematorium. Elie says he cannot weep because he "was out of tears". This shows the emotional hardening that the camp has caused him. He knows, deep inside, he is having thoughts of relief.
This chapter puts a large focus on the relationship between Elie and his father. He feels the desire at some points to abandon his father to relieve himself of the burden and possibly gain an extra ration of soup and bread. However, he always feels guilt after having these thoughts. At one point he claims that he is as bad as Rabbi Eliahu's son, who abandoned his father, but I don't think this is true. Although he had the temptation, ultimately Elie was extremely devoted to his father. He stayed with him throughout the entire journey and stuck with him until the very end.
Chapter 9 starts off with Elie describing his life in the camps without his father. He became a mindless drone with no other thoughts other than eating and sleeping. He became the shell of a man with no reason to live. Then, Buchenwald was liberated. The Americans took it over and drove out the SS. Elie was free. A couple weeks after the liberation, he fell victim to poisoning and was sent to a hospital. He looked at himself in a mirror which he had not done in a long time. He said a corpse gazed back at him and that "The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me." Elie realizes the full extent of what this camp had done to him. Not only was his physical appearance marred, but his soul was disfigured.
Here's a link to to some further information about the Allies liberating the concentration camps:
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005131
Here's a picture of Buchenwald being liberated:
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