In the words of Brené Brown, “Our identities are always changing and growing, they’re not meant to be pinned down.” These insightful words came after history’s most tragic event: the Holocaust. It was a time in which ideas, beliefs, and humanization were “pinned down”, furthermore, identities were stripped from their owners, resulting in a multitude of Jews being branded as nothing more than bodies. Elie Weisel’s novel, Night, explains his identity loss from extermination to liberation. The question is, what is your identity? The concept of identity relates to who we are and how others perceive us. In addition to feeling valued and confident, having an identity can help you feel a sense of belonging. Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir, Night, reveals how his identity was tested and destroyed by the Nazis because they used dehumanization tactics, forced rapid maturation in harsh conditions, and …show more content…
When the Germans come to Sighet to be helpful to the community, they are welcomed. Next, they are seen as enemies when establishing edicts in the steps of extermination. The mandates came steadfast in the community and quickly magnified: “Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yellow star” (11). Having everyone wear the star created no difference between individuals, and pursued isolation of personal identity. Considering it was the first moment Elie experienced identity loss, the event was significant. Wiesel's use of dehumanization as an example of identity loss not only emphasizes the power behind evil tactics but also displays the speed of the event, how a new day had another concept to cage them in. Following the decree of wearing the yellow star, Elie loses his identity further when having to mature abruptly in this environment. Elie enters the camp as a fifteen-year-old boy, holding his father's hand
This is the summary of the book Night, by Elie Wiesel. The subject matter of the book takes place during World War II. In this summary you, the reader, will be given a brief overview of the memoir and it will be discussed why the piece is so effective. Secondly, there will be a brief discussion about the power of one voice versus the listing of statistics. The impact of reading about individuals struggling to survive with the barest of means, will be the third and final point covered in this summary, with the authors feelings as commentary. The author’s own experience with the book is recommending you to read this summary of Night, and hopefully convince you to read the book itself.
An estimated 11 million people died in the Holocaust. 6 million were Jews. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel tells his story as a Holocaust survivor. Throughout his book he describes the tremendous obstacles he overcame, not only himself, but with his father as well. The starvation and cruel treatment did not help while he was there. Elie makes many choices that works to his advantage. Choice plays a greater factor in surviving Auschwitz.
A statement from the nonfiction novella Night –a personal account of Elie Wiesel’s experience during the Holocaust—reads as follows: “How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou. Almighty, Master of the universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end up in the furnaces” (67). War is a concept that is greatly looked down upon in most major religions and cultures, yet it has become an inevitable adversity of human nature. Due to war’s inhumane circumstances and the mass destruction it creates, it has been a major cause for many followers of Christianity, Judaism, and other religions to turn from their faith. Followers of religion cannot comprehend how their loving god could allow them to suffer and many devout
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 Holocaust was the mass murder of Jews during the period of 1941 to 1945 under the German Nazi regime. More than six million European Jews were murdered out of a nine million Jewish population. Out of those who had survived was Elie Wiesel, who is the author of a literary memoir called Night. Night was written in the mid 1950’s after Wiesel had promised himself ten years before the making of this book to stay silent about his suffering and undergoing of the Holocaust. The story begins in Transylvania and then follows his journey through a number of concentration camps in Europe. The protagonist, Eliezer or Elie, battles with Nazi persecution and his faith in God and humanity. Wiesel’s devotion in writing Night was to not stay quiet and bear witness; on the contrary, it was too aware and to enlighten others of this tragedy in hopes of preventing an event like this from ever happening again.
The Holocaust took place during World War II, when Adolf Hitler became the dictator of Germany in 1933. Would your identity change, if you were put through an epidemic. In the first section of the book, Eliezer Wiesel is a twelve year old boy who studies Judaism, but he wants to study Kabbalah, Wiesel described himself as faithful religious man. However, throughout Night, the evolution of Wiesel’s religious beliefs, symbolizes the struggle of the Holocaust.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, is an account about his experience through concentration camps and death marches during WWII. In 1944, fifteen year old Wiesel was one of the many Jews forced onto cattle cars and sent to death and labor camps. Their personal rights were taken from them, as they were treated like animals. Millions of men, women, children, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled people, and Slavic people had to face the horrors the Nazi’s had planned for them. Many people witnessed and lived through beatings, murders, and humiliations. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish
When an evil leader comes to power you would think it would be easy to overrun this leader and stop him in his tracks, but this is not always true. Elie Wiesel, a young teenager during the Holocaust is sent to many concentration camps. He sees the horror of what an evil power can do. As Elie Wiesel writes Night, he shows that in difficult times people stay silent and do not fight back, staying obedient to a powerful leader.
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 section in the novel night that painted a dark and angry picture of human nature is when the Jews were fleeing Buna and hundreds of them were packed in a roofless cattle car. The Jews were only provided with a blanket that soon became soaked by the snowfall. They spent days in the bitter cold temperatures and all they ate was snow. For these reasons, many suffered and died. When they stopped in German towns, the people stared at that cattle cars filled with soulless bodies. “They would stop and look at [the Jews] without surprise.” It was a regular occasion for the German people to see suffering Jews and not feel pity. The dark and angry picture of human nature was when a German worker “took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it
The ground is frozen, parents sob over their children, stomachs growl, stiff bodies huddle together to stay slightly warm. This was a recurrent scene during World War II. Night is a literary memoir of Elie Wiesel’s tenure in the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel created a character reminiscent of himself with Eliezer. Eliezer experienced cruelty, stress, fear, and inhumanity at a very young age, fifteen. Through this, he struggled to maintain his Jewish faith, survive with his father, and endure the hardships placed on his body and mind.
Book Report on Elie Wiesel's Night. Elie tells of his hometown, Sighet, and of Moshe the Beadle. He tells of his family and his three sisters, Hilda, Béa, and the baby of the family, Tzipora. Elie is taught the cabala by Moshe the Beadle.
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.
I have made a mistake. And this mistake took away thirty years of my life away from you. I won’t be able to pack your lunch on your first day of school, and I won’t be able to see you walk across the podium to receive your diploma. Because of my mistake, your life will be more difficult, and I only hope to make it up with this story. You may hate me or miss me, but no matter what you are feeling, I hope that you will have this story to accompany and guide you when I am gone.
“A traumatic experience robs you of your identity,” says Doctor Bill, an author and business entrepreneur. In the book “Night” written by Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, Elie describes his life during the traumatic event. Elie was taken from his home in Sighet, Transylvania in 1944 to be put into a concentration camp. He was only 15 at this time. Throughout the book, you can clearly see how Elie’s identity is altered in many ways, for worse as well as better, as more and more terrible things occur to him as well as others.