what is so sad about the comment juliek makes to elie? what does it reveal about life in a concentration camp?

When the prisoners witness the first hanging execution, Juliek whispers, "Do you think this ceremony'll be over soon? I'm hungryŠ" This progression towards emotional numbness and fierce self-centeredness is a kind of reverse character development: the prisoners do not grow and mature, but instead regress into a perverse kind of childlike, emotionally void state.