The book “Night” helped me understand the Holocaust much better. The writer, Elie Wiesel, did a great job describing his experiences and what he had to go through. In a way I feel bad that Elie had to go through all of these and then have to go back and think about all of it to be able to make a book. As the author said: “I don’t know how I survived, I did nothing to save myself.” Miracles happen but Elie didn’t think that what happened to him was a miracle.
The terrifying record of Elie’s memories of the death of his family, and his innocence
made it really clear that the War against the Jewish people wasn’t only about the people, it was also about their religion, their culture, and traditions. It must have been so hard to go back and think
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of all the tragedies and not having words to described what really happened and how it happened. He described the Holocaust as something dark and elusive. What really got me was how he described how educated men were able to kill innocent children and how the old people came to die. The countless separations of families, communities made it really hard to read. In 1944, twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel spend much of his time and emotion on the Talmud and on Jewish mysticism.
He found someone to teach him about everything he wanted to learn, Moshe the Beadle was a foreign Jew that got expelled from the village and came back with a near death experience and warns that the Nazi aggressors will soon threat their serenity. Through it all Elie’s family remain calm, not long Nazi authorities begin shipping the Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau. Elie’s family was part of the final convoy. Villagers could scarcely move and had to survive on minimal amounts of food and water. On his third day of their deportation, Elie lost his mother and three sisters. They disappear in the Birkenau death camp. His experiences made him turn against God, who through it all remain …show more content…
silent. Elie describes in the book that the Jews had to be evaluated to determine whether or not they should be killed immediately or if the should be put to work.
The Jews were shaved, disinfected and treated with unimaginable cruelty. Under such conditions, the Jews started taking caring for each other, religion and Zionism. Elie describes that the Jews were subjects to beating and repeated humiliations. Prisoners were forced to watch other people die, and watch innocent small children be hung and thrown in the air like targets. We can see that because of how they were treated many people begun to slide into cruelty, concerned only about their personal survival. Jews begun to loose humanity and faith in God and in the people around them.
By now the goodness of the world was shaken by the cruelty and evil that Elie witnessed during the Holocaust. If he could understand the Nazi menace as en evil aberration, then he would be able to believe that humankind was essentially good. But at this point all he saw was the selfishness, evil and cruelty that the Holocaust exposed. He did not only talk about the German people being capable to do such things, he believed that everybody at some point were capable of doing
them. In the book he sees the world so disgusting and cruel, and thinks that either God must be disgusting and cruel or God doesn’t exist at all. And for me all of this is understandable, we see bad things happen to good people and immediately we blame God. So imagine how Elie must have felt when all he saw was innocent people dying, children being killed and after loosing all of his family. One of my favorites quotes is when Elie states, “Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.” He feels like God has forgotten him, people wondered where God was but they only get one response from God, total silence. Night shows us the cruelty of humans, instead of comforting each other in difficult times, the prisoners respond to the circumstance by turning against each other. Fighting for one’s own life instead of fighting for all of them. He describes everyone fighting for their own, a place where there is no sister, father or child. Everyone fights and dies alone.
Samuels starts out explaining the background of Elie, a child who has a great love for religion. Then, Nazis come and occupy his native town of Sighet. Although held captured and clueless to where they were going, the Jews were indeed optimistic. They had no reason not to be, the Nazis were treating them as they were of importance. However, the optimism was to come to a halt. After arresting the Jewish leader, the Jews were sent to ghettos, then into camps. It wasn't until they reached Auschwitz where Elie for the first time smelt burning flesh. Then the eight words that Elie couldn't forget, "Men to the left! Women to the right!" He was then left with his father, who for the whole trip he would depend on to survive. It was this, in which made him lose his religiousness. In the months to come Elie and his father lived like animals. Tragically, in the end his father past away, and to amazement Elie had not wept. Samuels did an overall remarkable job on this review; however, there were still some parts that could have been improved.
Towards the end of the book Elie says, “On my return from the bread distribution, I found my father crying like a child” (page 109). Elie most likely felt very insecure and scared because he saw his father crying. As Elie Wiesel points out, “I remained more than an hour leaning over him, looking at him, etching his bloody, broken face into my mind” (page 112). Elie had to live with looking at his father who was broken inside and scarred on the outside, which in could leave a long term stress on the boy because he could never get the picture out of his mind of a loved one being beaten up and scared to die. He was psychologically affected because of what he had experienced. When seeing something like this happen (especially to a family member) could leave people affected for life, leaving them only the picture of their family being broken down into fine powder making them feel that they’re going completely insane.
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.
Elie has lost faith in mankind itself. To him, man was only good for following orders, or doing vile things to each other. “The absent no longer entered our thoughts. One spoke of them—who knows what happened to them?—but their fate was not on our minds. We were incapable
During their journey, Elie loses his father due to illness however does not feel much emotion. After witnessing his own die, Elie “did not weep” and “deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...” (Wiesel 112). While going through the camp Buna, Elie and his father had develops a strong relationship with one another. However, after his father’s death, Elie “did not weep” and displays very little towards the event. Elie had felt that his father was a liability for his own survival and did not feel the need to weep over his death. Elie also states that he was “Free at last” showing that throughout the course of the novel Elie had thought as his father as pulling him back from survival. The reason for Elie feels this way is because Elie is still on his journey and his primary goal is to survive through the camps. Elie has become quite desperate through his journey of survival and searches the “recesses of my feeble conscience” for his most inner thoughts. Throughout the novel, Elie had been storing these thoughts in the back of mind. These thoughts include him thinking of his father as liability and him being free from him. At their first arrival at the camps, Elie and his father had been very close to one another going through their journey of survival. However, after
Many different responses have occurred to readers after their perusal of this novel. Those that doubt the stories of the holocaust’s reality see Night as lies and propaganda designed to further the myth of the holocaust. Yet, for those people believing in the reality, the feelings proffered by the book are quite different. Many feel outrage at the extent of human maliciousness towards other humans. Others experience pity for the loss of family, friends, and self that is felt by the Holocaust victims.
Elie and his father are separated from Elie’s mother and little sister, never to be seen again. Elie comes face to face with the Angel of Death as he is marched to the edge of a crematory, but is put in a barracks instead. Elie’s faith briefly faltered at this moment. They are forced to strip down, but to keep their belt and shoes. They run to the barber and get their hair clipped off and any body hair shaved. Many of the Jews rejoice to see the others that have made it. Others weep for the ones lost. They then get prison clothes that were ridiculously fitted. They made exchanges and went to a new barracks in the “gypsies’ camp.” They wait in the mud for a long time. They were permitted to another barracks, with a gypsy in charge of them. They are ...
Mr. Wiesel had intended this book to describe a period of time in his life that had been dark and sorrowful. This novel is based on a survivor of the greatest Holocaust in history, Eliezer Wiesel and his journey of being a Jew in 1944. The journey had started in Sighet, Transylvania, where Elie spent his childhood. During the Second World War, Germans came to Elie and his family’s home town. They brought with them unnecessary evil and despair to mankind. Shortly after young Elie and thousands of other Jews were forced from their habitats and torn from their rights of being human. They were sent to different concentration camps. Elie and his family were sent to Auschwitz, a concentration and extermination camp. It would be the last time Elie sees his mother and little sister, Tzipora. The first sights of Auschwitz were terrifying. There were big flames coming from the burning of bodies and the crematoriums. The Jews had no idea of what to expect. They were not told what was about to happen to them. During the concentration camp, there was endless death and torture. The Jews were starved and were treated worse than cattle. The prisoners began to question their faith in God, wondering why God himself would
In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel remembers his time at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Elie begins to lose his faith in God after his faith is tested many times while at the concentration camp. Elie conveys to us how horrific events have changed the way he looks at his faith and God. Through comments such as, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God, my soul, and turned my dreams into dust,” he reveals the toll that the Holocaust has taken on him. The novel begins during the years of 1942-1944 in Sighet, Transylvannia, Romania. Elie Wiesel and his family are deported and Elie is forced to live through many horrific events. Several events such as deportation, seeing dead bodies while at Auschwitz, and separation from his mother and sisters, make Elie start to question his absolute faith in God.
After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others. Throughout his recollections, it is clear that Elie has a constant struggle with his belief in God. Prior to Auschwitz, Elie was motivated, even eager, to learn about Jewish mysticism.
Elie goes to Auschwitz at an innocent, young stage in his life. Due to his experiences at this concentration camp, he loses his faith, his bond with his father, and his innocence. Situations as horrendous as the Holocaust will drastically change people, no matter what they were like before the event, and this is evident with Elie's enormous change throughout the memoir Night.
This new behavior lead him to develop new character traits. While Ellie was in the concentration camp he became angry at many things, for example “I would have dug my nails into the criminals flesh” (Wisel 39). Elie shows extreme anger when the Nazi officials are beating Elie’s father. Elie was angry because the Nazi soldiers were not treating them nicely and putting them in poor conditions. Elie is usually not a person for anger but he shows this when his family members are being hurt. Elie wants to stand up for what is right and for his family members. Despite his studying, Elie wavered in his belief in Kabbalah while he was at the camp. In the book Elie says, “‘Where are You, my God?’” (66). Elie is wondering why God is not helping the Jews. Elie had complete faith in his religion until now, when he is starting to question his beliefs. He had learned that God will punish evil and save the righteous. However, when Elie saw that God was not helping the Jews situation then asked himself the question, “Is God real?”. Elie became worried because he felt he had lost a companion that always seemed by his side at all times. He lost hope. While Elie was in the camp he had changed the way he acted towards his Dad. Before Elie was sent to the camp Elie had a love hate relationship with his dad. However while they were in the camp together they became closer. Elie showed this when, “I tightened my grip on my
...e has to deal with the death of his family, the death of his innocence, and the death of his God at the very young age of fifteen. He retells the horrors of the concentration camp, of starvation, beatings, torture, illness, and hard labor. He comes to question how God could let this happen and to redefine the existence of God in the concentration camp. This book is also filled with acts of kindness and compassion amid the degradation and violence. It seems that for every act of violence that is committed, Elie counteracts with some act of compassion. Night is a reflection on goodness and evil, on responsibility to family and community, on the struggle to forge identity and to maintain faith. It shows one boy's transformation from spiritual idealism to spiritual death via his journey through the Nazi's failed attempt to conquer and erase a people and their faith.
He suffers a great deal and is locked in a concentration camp for most of the novel. Elie tries to take on the inhumane acts and struggles that the Nazis throw at him. A young boy and his father face the harsh inhumane acts of Word War II’s Holocaust. While Elie and Morrie are on in the same, suffering through dramatic events in life, Elie seems to not have any faith at all in the book. The faith that he once had died very quickly. The events that took place in the concentrations camps were too much for Elie. Most of Elie’s faith in humanity has completely been washed away and put into the garbage. Unlike Morrie, Elie States this after a fellow jew is hung, “FOR God’s sake , where is God? Where is he? God is hanging from the gallows. That night, the soup tasted of corpses.”(Wiesel 65) Throughout the novel Elie gives up on almost everything. He constantly talks about how he would rather die than suffer, while Morrie speaks happy thoughts. They are one in the same because no matter the positive, or the negative attitude, they both fought until the end. Elie is so negative throughout the novel, and he believes that this is what the world has come to. He soon starts to believe that this is all he will ever know. Elie believes that is this is what the life of humanity has come to, Elie does not want to live his