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The holocaust loss of faith essay
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Loss of Faith in Elie Wiesel's "Night" Night is a dramatic book that tells the horror and evil of the concentration camps that many were imprisoned in during World War II. Throughout the book the author Elie Wiesel, as well as many prisoners, lost their faith in God. There are many examples in the beginning of Night where people are trying to keep and strengthen their faith but there are many more examples of people rebelling against God and forgetting their religion. The first example of Elie loosing his faith is when he arrived at Auschwitz. Elie and his father are directed to go to the left. A prisoner then informs them that they are on their way to the crematory. Elie's father recites the Kaddish or prayer for the dead. Revolt rises up inside of Elie and he questions God. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for? (Wiesel 31) Another example of prisoners in the concentration camp loosing their faith in Night is when the pipel, a young child, was hung in front of the whole camp. The pipel was the Oberkapo?s servant. The Oberkapo was the leader of the fifty-second unit. He never struck or insulted the prisoners who worked under him ,that is why the prisoners loved him . Even though most pipels were cruel and hated, this one had the face of a sad angel and was loved by all. The Oberkapo was suspected in the intentional explosion of Buna?s electric power station. He...
The book, Night, by Eliezer (Elie) Wiesel, entails the story of his childhood in Nazi concentration camps all around Europe. Around the middle of the 20th century in the early 1940s, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi army traveled around Europe in an effort to exterminate the Jewish population. As they went to through different countries in order to enforce this policy, Nazi officers sent every Jewish person they found to a concentration camp. Often called death camps, the main purpose was to dispose of people through intense work hours and terrible living conditions. Wiesel writes about his journey from a normal, happy life to a horrifying environment surrounded by death in the Nazi concentration camps. Night is an amazingly
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.
The memoir, Night, demonstrates that there is good in having hope in the sense that it can make an ideal of surviving into more of a reality, therefore it is easier to prevail.There are many points throughout the text where the author, Elie Wiesel alludes to this. At one point Elie is describing the experience close to the start of the time in the concentration camp: “Our moral was much improved. A good night’s sleep had done its work. Friends met, exchanged a few sentences. We spoke of everything without ever mentioning those who had disappeared. The prevailing opinion was that the war was about to end.” (pg. 42) In this particular part of the memoir, the community around Elie is holding the ideal of the war coming to an end before it gravely
The novel Night demonstrates that the human spirit can be affected by the power of false hope, by religion, and that one will do whatever it will take to survive for oneself and family.
Elie seems to lose faith in God. “"Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba…May His name be celebrated and sanctified…" whispered my father. For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (33) The God Elie once prayed and cried out to before was allowing his people to die in horrible ways. God, a being who is supposed to be loving and merciful was allowing them to die alongside millions of other
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.
It is unsurprising, though, that he would do so. His religious beliefs are deep rooted and while Wiesel had denounced God, he still turned to him in moments of desperation.He had witnessed a man leaving behind his father, only for the man to live, unaware of his son’s betrayal and in search of him. “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed” (Wiesel 91).Humans, in moments of loneliness and desperation, call out to a higher power. Despite his abandonment of God Wiesel need something to hear his words, to reassure him that he would not become someone to leave their own kin to die.
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.
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
Elie Wiesel wrote Night as a memoir of the horrors he endeavored during his teen years in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. He begins his novel by describing Moishe the Beadle, who later becomes his mentor in all things Kabbalah. “Why did I pray? Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Wiesel 4) For a child of thirteen, he was deeply fascinated and devout towards the religion, listening for hours on end to Moishe’s lectures. He believes His God to be benevolent, that without His ubiquitous God, nothing would exist. After Moishe is sent away and experienced what the...
In today's society our belief in god is often challenged and left to the strength of our faith, because of this many people experience a loss of faith. Faith is often challenged in situations such as Tragic events, Apathy and doubt, and the influence of relationships. These situations also affect certain age groups as children experience tragedy, teens and adults experience apathy, and young adults experience intellectual doubt.
Imagine witnessing infants getting tossed in the air and getting used as targets for the soldiers to shoot at. Imagine being constantly beaten and ordered around every day. Many jews experienced this and lived with the conditions. The holocaust was a deliberate killing of the Jews. Elie Wiesel was one of those people witnessing the infants getting tossed in the air and being constantly beaten down by German soldiers. He witnessed hundreds of people dying if it was from getting shot, burned, the gas chamber, etc. Elie explains his experience in many different forms, for example, he wrote a book called “Night” sharing his point of view.
When people are placed in difficult, desolate situations, they often change in a substantial way. In Night by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist, Elie, is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he undergoes many devastating experiences. Due to these traumatic events, Elie changes drastically, losing his passion in God, becoming disconnected with his father, and maturing when it matters most.
Throughout the Holocaust, Wiesel came face-to-face with many obstacles in which he considers giving up on himself, his father, and God. This put a strain on his relationship with God due to the fact that Wiesel blamed most sins committed within the novel on God. While revealing his personal experience during the Holocaust in the novel, Night, Wiesel puts a strain on his relationship with God and uses theology to describe the importance of faith in someone’s life.
Night is a memoir written by Elie Wiesel, a young Jewish boy, who tells of his experiences during the Holocaust. Elie is a deeply religious boy whose favorite activities are studying the Talmud and spending time at the Temple with his spiritual mentor, Moshe the Beadle. At an early age, Elie has a naive, yet strong faith in God. But this faith is tested when the Nazi's moves him from his small town.