“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” --Norman Cousins Feelings of death and horror can take over the mind and heart of one that has dealt with horrific, perturbing, incomprehensible experiences. In the book Night Elie Wiesel, a teenager from Sighet, Transylvania suffers these thoughts. In the Spring of 1944 Elie Wiesel and his family, along with the other Jews of Sighet and millions more from around the world, are sent to the notorious concentration camp Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, the Jews are imprudently chosen to work to death or to barbarically burn alive in the crematoria. After Elie Wiesel and his father make it out of the first night alive, they are subject to endless inhumane torture by the Nazis until they are liberated by the United States Army on April 11th, 1945. …show more content…
They are strutting down the street where their homes are and as they pass by Elie Wiesel, he sees the ghostly, broken look on their faces, he describes them as “beaten dogs...defeated.” (Wiesel 17). The way Elie Wiesel describes the broken, lost, dead looks on their faces as they shuffle past him show that they are already dead emotionally; the deportees are not taking one last glance of their childhood, instead they plod along emotionless. The narrator also notices that the deportees “left behind their homes… their childhood.” (Wiesel 17). The deportees are emotionally dead because they just left their lives, their childhood, their friends, and their homes without a second word. Wiesel describes them in a way that makes their faces dead almost like they are just too beat down emotionally to show any feeling for their lives and homes being taken from them by the Nazis. The deportees have already lost their emotion, not even seeing the worst that is certain to
Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood lifestyle is very pronounced within the book, Night. This book, written by the main character, Elie Wiesel, tells the readers about the experiences of Mr. Wiesel during the Holocaust. The book starts off by describing Elie’s life in his hometown, Sighet, with his family and friends. As fascism takes over Hungary, Elie and his family are sent north, to Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie stays with his father and speaks of his life during this time. Later, after many stories of the horrors and dehumanizing acts of the camp, Elie and his father make the treacherous march towards Gliewitz. Then they are hauled to Buchenwald by way of cattle cars in extremely deplorable conditions, even by Holocaust standards. The book ends as Elie’s father is now dead and the American army has liberated them. As Elie is recovering in the hospital he gazes at himself in a mirror, he subtly notes he much he has changed. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses his innocence and demeanour because he was traumatized by what he saw in the camps, his loss of faith in a God who stood idly by while his people suffered, and becoming selfish as he is forced to become selfish in the death camps to survive.
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
Night by Elie Wiesel was a memoir on one of the worst things to happen in human history, the Holocaust. A terrible time where the Nazi German empire started to take control of eastern Europe during WWII. This book tells of the terrible things that happened to the many Jewish people of that time. This time could easily change grown men, and just as easily a boy of 13. Elie’s relationship with God and his father have been changed forever thanks to the many atrocities committed at that time.
So as the morning Sun rose. The light beamed on Christopher's face. The warmth of the sun welcomed him to a new day and woke up in a small house in Los Angeles. Christopher is a tall, male, that loves technology and video games. He stretched and went to the restroom it was 9 o'clock and he was thankful it was spring break and didn’t have to go to school. Christopher made his way to the kitchen trying not wake up his parents and made himself breakfast. He served himself cereal Honey Bunches of Oats to be exact with almond milk. Then he took a shower and watched some YouTube videos before doing his homework.
It is reported that over 6 million Jews were brutally murdered in the Holocaust, but there were a very few who were able to reach the liberation, and escape alive. There were many important events that occurred in Elie Wiesel’s Night, and for each and every event, I was equally, if not more disturbed than the one before. The first extremely disturbing event became a reality when Eliezer comprehended that there were trucks filled with babies that the Nazi’s were throwing the children into the crematorium. Unfortunately, the sad truth of the murdering babies was clearly presented through, “Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there, […] babies”, (Wiesel, Night, 32). This was one of the most disturbing events of the narrative for myself and truly explained the cruelty and torture of the Holocaust.
The significance of night throughout the novel Night by Elie Wiesel shows a poignant view into the daily life of Jews throughout the concentration camps. Eliezer describes each day as if there was not any sunshine to give them hope of a new day. He used the night to symbolize the darkness and eeriness that were brought upon every Jew who continued to survive each day in the concentration camps. However, night was used as an escape from the torture Eliezer and his father had to endure from the Kapos who controlled their barracks. Nevertheless, night plays a developmental role of Elie throughout he novel.
The lines are neither optimistic or pessimistic, demonstrating that the victims of the Holocaust were emotionally drained to the point where they only felt hunger. Fear itself lost its meaning in the camp, as they were constantly living in the shadow of the crematory smoke stacks. Death became the only staples in their lives, “I’ve got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He’s only one who’s kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people,” (77). In this phrase, the reader realizes that the camps destroyed victim 's emotions to the point where they only relied on death and destruction. Wiesel’s dialogue on faith and humanity portrays the mentality of the victims of the Holocaust, “Where is God now? … Where is he? Here he is - He is hanging here on this gallows…” (62). Many stories from the Holocaust depict stories of victims maintaining their faith throughout their time in the camps. However, Wiesel depicts a much more relatable image through his dialogue; an image of destruction in emotional, spiritual, and physical
As humans, we require basic necessities, such as food, water, and shelter to survive. But we also need a reason to live. The reason could be the thought of a person, achieving some goal, or a connection with a higher being. Humans need something that drives them to stay alive. This becomes more evident when people are placed in horrific situations. In Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, he reminisces about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. There the men witness horrific scenes of violence and death. As time goes on they begin to lose hope in the very things that keep them alive: their faith in God, each other, and above all, themselves.
The Holocaust survivor Abel Herzberg has said, “ There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times.” The Holocaust is one of the most horrific events in the history of mankind, consisting of the genocide of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally handicapped and many others during World War II. Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany, and his army of Nazis and SS troops carried out the terrible proceedings of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel is a Jewish survivor of the Nazi death camps, and suffers a relentless “night” of terror and torture in which humans were treated as animals. Wiesel discovers the “Kingdom of Night” (118), in which the history of the Jewish people is altered. This is Wiesel’s “dark time of life” and through his journey into night he can’t see the “light” at the end of the tunnel, only continuous dread and darkness. Night is a memoir that is written in the style of a bildungsroman, a loss of innocence and a sad coming of age. This memoir reveals how Eliezer (Elie Wiesel) gradually loses his faith and his relationships with both his father (dad), and his Father (God). Sickened by the torment he must endure, Wiesel questions if God really exists, “Why, but why should I bless him? Because he in his great might, had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? (67). Throughout the Holocaust, Wiesel’s faith is not permanently shattered. Although after his father dies, his faith in god and religion is shaken to the core, and arguably gone. Wiesel, along with most prisoners, lose their faith in God. Wiesel’s loss of religion becomes the loss of identity, humanity, selfishness, and decency.
The book Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir written to describe the events in Elie’s life that were drastic and important for everyone to learn about. It was 1944 in Germany, all Jews were evacuated to concentration camps where they would be abused and tortured incessantly by Nazi soldiers who were trying to efface all Jews out of Germany. Throughout Elie’s life in these concentration camps, he experienced moments where his humanity, faith, and beliefs were ripped apart. Two moments in Night that were pivotal in Elie’s progression from the boy he was at the beginning to the "corpse" he sees staring back at him in the mirror are when he sees the boy hanging on the gallows and when he realizes he is left alone when his father dies. The first moment in Night that was pivotal in Elie’s progression from the boy he was at the beginning was when he witnessed a negligible young boy being hanged by S.S. officers.
Breaking his self-imposed vow of silence in 1958, Elie Wiesel published Night which details his horrific experiences at the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps during World War II. Deported from his home in Sighet, Transylvania when just a teenager, Wiesel along with many others struggled through bitter cold, inadequate meals, excruciating labor, and long journeys in overcrowded, filthy train cars. In Night, Wiesel not only details his horrific experiences, but also shows how the Jews first denied the Holocaust, next rejected God, and finally how fathers and sons struggled against each other for survival.
Following their liberation 1945, thousands of Jewish prisoners were released into the world. Unfortunately, many suffer from Holocaust Syndrome, which plagues them with feelings of guilt for surviving, while many of their friends and family did not. In chapter nine of Night, Elie shows evidence of this syndrome through his guilt, lack of motivation, and thoughts of death. To begin, Elie’s first sign of Survivor’s Syndrome is his guilt of surviving while the rest of his family did not. His father’s death haunts him and marks a significant turning point in this novel. He wrote, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me anymore” (Wiesel 113). The death of his father took the greatest toll on Elie because they had suffered through such a
“ ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ The gate said as I entered Auschwitz. ‘ I have worked, and now I am free’ I said as I left Auschwitz.” In the book “Night”, you can see the effects of the Holocaust on the mentality of the Jews in concentration camps. Throughout this book the characters change because of the physical and emotional pain they are put through. Elie Wiesel, the author of this book, shows us how much they changed, walking in basically untouched, and walking out with a scarred mind and a weak body. And some come out with their gaze wide and spaced, as if they have been dragged through hell. Shlomo (Elie’s father) changes throughout the book, as well as Ms. Shächter, and Elie himself. The characters were put through so much physical and mental torture that it reflects the realities of the Holocaust well, relating to real holocaust victims.
I am analyzing a picture of a mass shooting at some concentration camp. A deep trench full of dead bodies with weeping Jews kneeled down yelling while being shot in the back of the head to fall down to rest with their dead brethren . The solders look fearless while firing into the crowd, holding there gun high with no second thoughts. The dead bodies of Jews are effortlessly slumped in the mud-infested trench with nothing but the jumpsuit-like clothes gifted to them at the concentration camp and the Star of David to stay with them at an everlasting pit of death.
When you see something traumatizing, do you cry? Well for some people out there in this world do not show any emotion for something that can scar others for life. In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, many people see violence no other person has ever seen on a daily basis. Most people became emotionally dead while trying to indorse the strength to move on. Recent years, we had similar event occur like kids in South Sudan being force to be kid soldiers and kids in the Middle East seeing daily warface around them. The theme of “emotional death” is very evidential in the book Night, and it is still relevant today.