From being a bystander of bullying to committing murder are many ways of being indifferent. It is everywhere in everyday life in prospering countries and in poor and destroyed countries. Elie Wiesel knows how indifference feels and how it affects people. He was also indifferent and regrets what he did to this day. He was a victim of the Holocaust and lived through indifference. During his imprison ship he saw indifference everywhere in the camps. How he treated his father is what he regrets. He just cared about himself because another prisoner told him to. He believes his father died because he did not help him all he could. His whole book could be based on indifference if you interpreted it that way. From how the guards treated the prisoners to how kids including Elie treated their own parents. Indifference is a very big topic and a part of Night. Indifference is what pushed him to write his descriptive, emotional, strong, and outstanding novel. Right away the jews show indifference. The pre-camp jews “refused not only to believe” Moche the Beadle’s stories “but even to …show more content…
listen to them” (Wiesel). Moche was a wise old man that deserved to be listened too. He was a very religious man who prayed. He prayed for his son that he had lost. Because of his son's death everyone believed he was crazy which is why they ignored him. “Jews, listen to me! That’s all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!” (7). The jews treated the Germans with more respect than Moche. When the Germans came they didn’t even acknowledge what could happen to them and they invited them in their homes. “Well? What did we tell you? You wouldn’t believe us. There they are, your Germans. What do you say now? Where is their famous cruelty?” (10). It is partially the jews fault why they got captured. They could have escaped many times. They got captured because of indifference. They wanted to believe that nothing would happen to them. They were then sent to concentration camps because they thought nothing was wrong. Another example of indifference would be the rest of the world especially including the Germans. They knew what was happening and still did not chose to help the jews. They easily could have helped before this all began. At the beginning of the book when the jews were being transported “many of the Germans stared without surprise” (Wiesel). They knew what was happening but did not help the jews because they were not being affected. Also the Germans showed great indifference when the jews were being transported in the train. The train cars were open on the side so the citizens threw bread in the cars. The jews than fought over the bread and the people watched. “Took a lively interest in this spectacle” (Wiesel). If the Germans helped instead of being indifferent the concentration camps would have never lasted. The biggest example of indifference in Night is the SS guards that worked at the concentration camps.
Most guards treated the prisoners with complete disrespect. “There are eighty of you in the car. If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs” (24). They beat the men in front of their own children and did not let them speak. They even called them filthy dogs because that is how they viewed them. “Their fingers on the triggers, they did not deprive themselves of this special pleasure” (Wiesel). This shows that the guards enjoyed killing the jews and did not care about what they wanted. The concentration camps could have easily been stopped simply if the guards refused to murder the innocent jews. By the guards not saying anything is the main reason why they were indifferent. They could have been scared because of their situation. They had weapons though and could have made a
revolt. Wiesel is one of the people in the world that knows first-hand what indifference is. He decided to share his tragic past. The holocaust inspired him to show everyone why you have to put indifference aside. If everyone in the world had the same view on life as Wiesel there would no longer be any wars. He won a nobel peace prize for his sad but informational book. Night made me realize how far our world has came. What happened to the innocent jews would never stand today in any society. There is still events that should not be happening though. These events are happening because of indifference, but the world will always have it.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
Speeches are given for a purpose. Whether it is for persuasion, or education, or even entertainment, they all target certain parts of people’s minds. This speech, The Perils of Indifference, was given by Elie Wiesel with intention to persuade his audience that indifference is the downfall of humanity, and also to educate his audience about his conclusions about the Holocaust and the corresponding events. He was very successful in achieving those goals. Not only was the audience enlightened, but also President Bill Clinton, and the First Lady, Hillary Clinton, themselves were deeply touched by Wiesel’s words.
During the Holocaust era, a third of all Jewish people alive at the time were murdered by the Germans. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, the systematic killing of the Jewish people was happening all around him. Although Wiesel does not use the word “genocide,” his account of his experience shows that it was definitely genocide that he witnessed.
However, the servant to a Dutchman was not like this at all. He was loved by all and, "He had the face of a sad angel." (Wiesel 42). However, when the power station that the child worked at blew up, he was tortured for information. But the child refused to speak and was sentenced to death by hanging.
In the eyes of Elie Wiesel, author of Night, indifference whether it be in relationship abuse or another problem, is mentally damaging and needs to be eliminated. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel illustrates how indifference can harm the mind of the victim when he says, “Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live,” (Night 34). In this, Wiesel is speaking of his first night in Auschwitz. When he mentions silence he is referring to the indifference that the Jews in concentration camps faced from the rest of the world. Wiesel refers to that night as the time he lost his desire to live because he saw so much indifference toward the suffering of the inmates and the horrific things that were happening to them. After this, his desire to stay alive was destroyed because he watched as the world stood by, indifferent to the senseless murder of millions. Throught this, Wiesel illustrates that indifference will impact people for the rest of their lives. Because indifference
Is it possible to lose awareness in the face of chaos not only of the situation itself but also of the other people involved, as well as of oneself? Despite the complexity of this question, it appears to be thoroughly answered in the novel Night by Elie Wiesel. As a matter of fact, the author and his fellow Jews remain unsuspecting of the warnings that unfold throughout the novel. Moreover, it is only until Wiesel is exposed to the malevolence of the Holocaust that he is finally able to fathom that everything has lost significance, except for “the word chimney” which Elie perceives as “the only word that had real meaning in” the Auschwitz concentration camp (Wiesel 39). Beyond the literal meaning, this metaphor reveals that the Holocaust causes Elie and his fellow Jews to become insensitive to the pain of those around them, and to lose sight of who they once were.
Inked on the pages of Elie Wiesel’s Night is the recounting of him, a young Jewish boy, living through the mass genocide that was the Holocaust. The words written so eloquently are full of raw emotions depict his journey from a simple Jewish boy to a man who was forced to see the horrors of the world. Within this time period, between beatings and deaths, Wiesel finds himself questioning his all loving and powerful God. If his God loved His people, then why would He allow such a terrible thing to happen? Perhaps Wiesel felt abandoned by his God, helpless against the will of the Nazis as they took everything from him.
Conformity has been a part of society for centuries. People conform for various reasons. The examples featured in "Night" by Elie Wiesel, "Asch Experiment" by Saul McLeod, and "Conformity" by CommonLit Staff portray this in different situations. These selections show why people conform. People conform because of fear, self-doubt ,and for acceptance by peers. The fear of being rejected by society is shown strongly in Elie Wiesel's "Night."
Through the many issues our society has experienced, inhumanity is one of them. In the past, people of the world have experienced all types of mayhem. There have been powerful incidents that have occurred since the Holocaust which show that to this day inhumanity is still present in modern time. In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, there are a lot of examples of inhumanity. The main character Elie has to endure hard times. One example is when he was forced to go to a concentration camp, or when he was stripped from his home, or when he and his family were split in half. Even though some people do not agree, the book Night is still relevant in present day because inhumanity still exists.
In “The Perils of Indifference” Elie Wiesel uses several techniques to get his point across. Three of them in the speech are Ethos, Repetition, and Pathos. He uses a combination of the three elements throughout the paragraphs of his speech to attract the readers. The combination of these elements help draw the reader’s emotions and interest towards his subject. He focuses on word choice that would pertain to his audience’s level of vocabulary.
To the people in the concentration camps, apathy is a “harsher punishment” (Wiesel) than anger or rage, because anger has feelings in it, while indifference just makes a suffering person feel even smaller and more insignificant. Indifference in humans potentially goes against religion, because it blurs the lines between “light and darkness” (Wiesel). Throughout his speech at the Millennium Lectures, Elie Wiesel both enlightens on the consequences of apathy towards those who need help, and inspires hope for a better future.
In this tiny novel, you will get to walk right into a gruesome nightmare. If only then, it was just a dream. You would witness and feel for yourself of what it is like to go through the unforgettable journey that young Eliezer Wiesel and his father had endured in the greatest concentration camp that shook the history of the entire world. With only one voice, Eliezer Wiesel’s, this novel has been told no better. Elie's voice will have you emotionally torn apart. The story has me questioning my own wonders of how humanity could be mistreated in such great depths and with no help offered.
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 Perils of Indifference” is a speech that Elie Wiesel delivered in Washington D.C. on April 12, 1999, exactly 54 years after his release from the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald by American troops. Both Congress along with President Clinton and Mrs. Clinton were present to hear the speech. Wiesel spoke briefly about what it was like in the concentration camps, but he focused mostly on the topic of Indifference. His speech was effective in its use of rhetoric to convince the audience that as individuals and as a world culture we cannot afford to become indifferent to the suffering around us.
Braham, Randolph L. "Hungarian Jews: Preparatory Work in Auschwitz." Gutman, Yisrael and Michael Berenbaum. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. n.d. 462-463.