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The Dangers of Fear Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. 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. Yet, after he had been exposed to the reality of the concentration camps, Elie began to question God. According to Elie, God “caused thousands of children to burn...He kept six crematoria working day and night...He created Auschwitz, Birkenau, [and] Buna”(67). Elie could not believe the atrocities going on around him. He could not believe that the God he followed tolerated such things. During times of sorrow, when everyone was praying and sanctifying His name, Elie no longer wanted to praise the Lord; he was at the point of giving up. The fact that the “Terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent”(33) caused Elie to lose hope and faith. When one cho... ... middle of paper ... ...ed Auschwitz, he was emotionally dead. The many traumatizing experiences he had been through affected Elie and his outlook on the world around him. Fear can affect people in ways they never thought possible. Sometimes, they lose sight of who they once were and become a whole new person. The various experiences Elie faced in the concentration camps affected his whole world. Elie, a devoted Jewish believer, lost faith in God after realizing that he cannot have faith in a God who tolerates inhumanity such as he went through. Self-sufficiency was encouraged throughout the concentration camps, therefore Elie was forced to grow up and leave his innocence behind. Because of this self-reliance, many started to view their friends and family as a burden rather than a motivation. All in all, one can say that fear is the root of many catastrophes in the world today.
Elie Wiesel writes about his personal experience of the Holocaust in his memoir, Night. He is a Jewish man who is sent to a concentration camp, controlled by an infamous dictator, Hitler. Elie is stripped away everything that belongs to him. All that he has worked for in his life is taken away from him instantly. He is even separated from his mother and sister. On the other side of this he is fortunate to survive and tell his story. He describes the immense cruel treatment that he receives from the Nazis. Even after all of the brutal treatment and atrocities he experiences he does not hate the world and everything in it, along with not becoming a brute.
Elie Weisel and his family, taken from their home along with hundreds of other Jews from their hometown, were brought to Nazi Germany’s Concentration Camps. “From this moment, you come under the command of the German army…any of you who is later found to have kept anything will be shot on the spot,” (Weisel 15). Even prior to entering Birkenau, Auschwitz, or Burma, the prisoners were forced to give up all belongings under the threat of death. In a godless and unloving environment, a twelve-year-old Elie must now survive against all odds in a concentration camp. “You’re going to be burned. Frizzled away. Turned into ashes,” (Weisel 20). Adolph Hitler had no concern for the Jew’s basic human rights and swore that he would kill them all. The Jews had done nothing to hurt or overthrow Hitler, but they still became the target of his wrath.
Eliezer’s horrible experiences at Auschwitz left him caught up in his sorrows and anger toward God. His loss of faith in God arises at Auschwitz. He doubts arise when he first sees the furnace pits in which the Nazis are burning babies. This horrifying experience ...
Elie Wiesel, a Jewish boy, lives in Sighet during World War II with his mother, father, and two sisters, and he is very religious and wanted to study Judaism. However, there were warnings by some people that Jewish people were being deported and killed. Although no one believes these warnings, Elie and his family are taken to a ghetto where they have no food. After being in the ghetto Elie and his father are separated from Elie’s mother and sister because of selection and were placed in cattle cars where they had no room. They are taken to Auschwitz where they suffer from hunger, beatings, and humiliation from the guards which causes Elie’s father to become weak. By now Elie loses his faith in God because of all he has been through. Lastly, Elie’s father dies just before the Jews are liberated and Elie sees his reflection in the mirror but does not recognize himself because he looks like a skeleton.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald writes “He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized”. This idea of how people could become almost unimaginably cruel due to dehumanization corresponds with the Jews experience in the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the ruthless massacre of Jewish people, and other people who were consider to be vermin to the predetermined Aryan race in the 1940s. One holocaust survivor and victim was Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of Night. Wiesel was one of the countless people to go through the horrors of the concentration camps, which dehumanized people down to their animalistic nature, an echo of their previous selves. Dehumanization worsens over time in Night because of how the Jews treated each other, and how Elie changed physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
An estimated 1/3 of all Jewish people who were alive were grotesquely tortured and murdered during the Holocaust. Those who were not murdered went through changes mentally, physically, and spiritually. This changed many people’s identities to where they seemed like a completely different person. Elie was one of the many people whose identity had changed throughout their time at the death camps.
The best teachers have the capabilities to teach from first hand experience. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel conveys his grueling childhood experiences of survival to an audience that would otherwise be left unknown to the full terrors of the Holocaust. Night discloses mental and physical torture of the concentration camps; this harsh treatment forced Elie to survive rather than live. His expert use of literary devices allowed Wiesel to grasp readers by the hand and theatrically display to what extent the stress of survival can change an individual’s morals. Through foreshadowing, symbolism, and repetition, Wiesel’s tale proves that the innate dark quality of survival can take over an individual.
The first way that Elie Wiesel was affected in the Holocaust was emotionally. Noted in the book “ I shall not describe my life during that period. It no longer mattered. Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore (113 page).” This piece of evidence shows that Elie was affected emotionally after his father's death because he no longer cared what happened in his life in camp and he was emotionally hurt. Nevertheless, he said that after his dad died he only had one desire, to eat . On page 39
Eliezer loses faith in god. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. "Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul and turned my dreams to dust..."(pg 32). Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of his misery. "Why should I bless his name? The eternal, lord of the universe, the all-powerful and terrible was silent..."(pg 31). Eliezer is confused, because he does not know why the Germans would kill his face, and does not know why god could let such a thing happen. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(pg 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and courage to live.
Before the move to concentration camps, Elie’s mental state was fairly solid. He had nothing wrong with his life or anything that seemed to be important enough to affect his mental health. When people started dying and getting beaten in front of Elie, he began to wear down mentally. He saw babies being thrown in the crematorium. Elie said, “I’ll run into the electrified barbed wire. That would be easier than a slow death in the flames” (Wiesel 33). As Elie progressed through the concentration camps, he slowly declined mentally. He began to think of his father as a hindrance, and would debate to kill himself and not live anymore. Elie's mental health was worn down greatly. He had gotten to the point where the choice of dying was better than living. But he wasn't the only one, plenty of other Jews suffered the same
Terry Pratchett once said that, “Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.” There is a lot of hate and prejudice against the Germans because of their actions as Nazis in World War 2, and some of that hate is justified. In Night, Nazis treated the Jews as objects; indifferent about their feelings, and forced the Jews into harsh labor and living conditions. Elie Wiesel and his father, Shlomo Wiesel, are Jews who lived in Sighet, they lived peacefully but, then were forced into working in concentration camps when Nazis tried to conquer Europe. Elie and his father experienced the horrors of the Nazi regime. They watched as countless of their friends and fellow Jews passed away or were killed by the Nazis through the use of crematories or gas chambers. Elie also witnessed the product of inhumanity: the turning of people into animals; people fighting over pieces of food for survival, and the transformation of Elie himself. Elie’s experiences in Night represent the dehumanization of humans through ownership and the loss of freedom, and result of acts of inhumanity against humans.
In fact, Elie’s childhood was what made him who was and why he fought for peace. The treachery and injustice convinced and changed him. This change made him who he was. At 15 years old, he and his family were sent to the camp Auschwitz. There his mother and one of his sisters were killed while Elie, his father, and his other two sisters survived. At the camp, Elie lost touch with his sisters and was left with his dad. Elie said “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those
Not long after they arrived at Auschwitz, Elie began to lose faith in himself. After only observing the horrors of what was occurring, Elie had no desire to strive for survival, he was already prepared to die, and wanted to get it over with. He thought to himself, “I could not believe that human beings were being burned...If that is true, then I don't want to wait. I'll run into the electrified barbed wire” (Wiesel 33). Once a very self motivated individual, Elie now has no wish to fight for his life. Elie, just a boy at the time had his hopes and dreams taken away from him leaving him with no faith in himself. He thought to himself, “The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been consumed by the flames. All that was left was a shape that resembled me”(Wiesel 37). Elie realized that he no longer possessed the drive in which he had in Sighet. As Jews were no longer adequate enough to even possess a name they were required to receive numbers. Elie stated, “Three [veteran] prisoners tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name”(Wiesel 42). Elie being told that he is not even worthy of a name but only a number, created a huge decline in Elie’s faith in himself as these humans were fundamentally being treated like animals. Elie once being such a self inspired and motivated individual was completely barbarized and lost all faith he once
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.
Starving, burning, shooting, beating, and death. These are just a few examples that tormented Elie.The parents should have listened when they recieved their first warning signs that the germans were approaching, little did they know their future would be filled with hardship and pain. Concentration camps were no place for a human being to encounter daily. Nazi’s decided that blonde hair and blue eyes are what made you acceptable to the world, and others without were worthless, especially jewish people.These countless acts against jews made some question their religion and or even the existence of god.