Violence in Night

The Holocaust was an appalling event, filled with death, suffering, and violence. Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and author of the novel Night, saw this with his own eyes, both from his fellow Jews and from the SS officers who watched over the Jews. The violence took many forms, such as assaulting people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some might say that there was no difference between the barbarities of the two opposing sides, as people got hurt either way. In reality, the Jews were violent because they were fighting for their lives, while the SS officers had been brainwashed to have true racism towards Jews.

In the first place, the Jews, who had done nothing wrong except have a different religion than most Germans, turned sometimes to violence in order to survive. Sometimes they wouldn’t get food for several days, then would be crammed into freezing train cars with very few clothes. In one instance, a German citizen threw a piece of bread into one of those train cars, and Wiesel recalls, “In the wagon where the bread had landed, a battle had ensued. Men were hurling themselves against each other, trampling, tearing at and mauling at each other.” (Wiesel 101) If they had more food and were less desperate, there would much less violence. More Jews would have survived, as they sometimes ended up killing each other to get the measly bit of food. Moreover, in the infirmary, the Jews would beat up fellow inmates, such as Wiesel’s father when he had dysentery. When Wiesel was talking to his father, his father told him, ‘“My son, they are beating me!...the Frenchman…and the Pole…They beat me…”’ (Wiesel 109) The other inmates knew that Wiesel’s father was going to die soon, so they mauled him for his bread so they co...

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...eutenant said ‘“From this moment on, you are under the authority of the German Army. Anyone who still owns gold, silver, or watches must hand them over now. Anyone who will be found to have kept any of these will be shot on the spot.”’ (Wiesel 24) The officers could have just taken the possessions and let them go, instead of killing for an item of worth.

To summarize, the violence in the Holocaust came from both sides in the concentration camps, the Jews and the SS officers. The Jews, who were being killed by the thousands, tended to be violent so they could have a slightly better chance of surviving. The SS officers, on the other hand, were unnecessarily brutal simply because they hated the Jews. While people got hurt either way, there was a better reason behind the Jews violence than the SS officers.’ Under those circumstances, violence became the way of life.