The Silence of The Night

I was quite surprised about at Elie in the show with Oprah and his feeling toward the silence in the camp. In his book, He is quoted saying he would never "...forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky". I always thought that the silence he felt that night hurt him even more. All of us sometimes experience something so horrible and shocking, that the silence feels unnatural. It's as if we want the forces of nature to intervene and make everything right, but when they don't, we feel as if we want to break the silence and scream. Why would Elie want to feel that silence again during that visit? wouldn't that bring back painful memories of what he saw?