He and his father are separated from the rest of the family, and are almost thrown into a fiery furnace and left to die. As they stand looking at the flames, they see men throwing live babies into the inferno. Wiesel summarizes this experience as a turning point in his life. He said: " Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget those small faces of children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky." Though this is a literal representation of all the death that occurred during this time, it can also have a symbolical meaning to the death of many other things in Elie's life. The transformation in this moment also applies to his future and all of the hopes and dreams that died in that first night at Auschwitz. Repeated uses of the phrase "never shall I forget" drill into the reader's mind to show how life changing Auschwitz was, and all the death that occurred