The Test Of Faith In Elie Wiesel's Night

The Holocaust was a test of faith for all the Jews that were involved. There were several instances in the book Night when Elie’s faith was hindered. Not only was his faith in God tested, but also his faith in himself and his fellow man. Although the trials of the Holocaust were detrimental to Elie’s faith at the time, a number of the Jews’ strengthened by the test. Whenever the Holocaust began, Elie was very young and wasn’t sure what to believe or understand everything yet, causing him to go back and forth on how he felt and what he believed. The people around him were a tremendous impact on what he was thinking and believing. The state that people came out of the Holocaust heavily depended on who they were when they went in and what they

lost during it.
Eliezer loses hope, trust, and his beliefs. He begins to rely on himself because he knew that only he can help himself and he could not depend on anyone else. Also, he was always questioning if he should live or if he should just let go. Elie lost his father and consequently was empty and bereaved. He didn’t believe he could live alone thus he believed he had nothing to live for. "My mind was invaded suddenly by this realization there was no more reason to live, no more reason to struggle..." (Wiesel 93). He has no hope to live anymore, as well as no strength to survive. That in itself will hurt him for forever “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”(Wiesel 34). In conclusion, Elie gradually loses his hope and will to live and goes in a downward spiral following the death of his father.
Even though Elie’s faith sees a decline through his crucibles in the Holocaust, that was not the case for all of the Jews involved.

One example of a man’s faith staying strong is Victor Frankl. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor discusses his fight with faith during the Holocaust. “Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence, of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress” (Victor Frankl). Passionately, Victor believed that no matter what a person is enduring, they always have their “inner freedom” (Frankl). In the everyday kindnesses the Jews showed one another, he witnessed how people kept their humanity, although the Nazis were trying to steal it away from them with the what seemed to be an interminable torture. But he was not the only one who stayed strong in the face of these tribulations. In addition a woman named Gerda Weissmann Klein did not lose faith. She is a Holocaust survivor who wrote her story in her book All But My Life. She did not stay strong for the same reasons as Frankl. “My eyes remained dry. I felt my features turn stony. “‘Now I have to live,’ I said to myself, ‘because I am alone and nothing can hurt me any more’” (All But My Life: Important Quotes Explained). Elie Wiesel lost all will to live whenever his father died, however, Klein viewed it as a reason to stop caring about anything but surviving. Gerda doesn’t believe that there is anything left for the Nazi’s to take from her. Like Elie,

she sees liberation in losing their families as a result of no longer having the burden of considering anyone’s lives but their own. They are both greatly changed and bereaved by the deaths of their families, but it is ironic that Elie loses all of his will to live from it and he still survives and Gerda has an opposite view of the situation. In conclusion, when reading about the struggles of one Holocaust survivor, it is easy to believe that all of them had the same story, but by studying other survivor stories that notion is proven false.
It was not easy for Wiesel to doubt in God, or he would not have held on to his faith with such all of the terrible events happening to him. But sooner or later, the seeming meaninglessness of the suffering his people endured burst into the consciousness of his seemingly defeated Jewish faith. In the face of the crematory pit, Elie Wiesel said, “For the first time I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name?The Ruler of the Universe, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?''(Wiesel, 31). He awoke to the idea that he was “alone-terribly alone in a world without God.''(Wiesel 65). Lack of faith turned quickly to despair. If God wouldn't save His children, who would? No one believed the rumors of peace and safety. In the hospital at Auschwitz, Wiesel met a man consumed with this kind of despair. He said, “I've got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else”. He's the only one who's kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.''(Wiesel 77). All around Wiesel, the number of people that had faith in God was dropping. As tightly as they tried to hold on, Wiesel's people were finding it difficult to believe in God and what he was allowing to happen?
In the book Night, there is numerous instances where Elie’s faith in man is questioned.

Elie is just a young boy whenever everything happens, and his faith in humanity is still quite strong. However, as time goes on, Elie is faced with an abundance of challenges and tasks that will test just how strong his faith is. Whenever Elie was young, he was curious about God and wanted to know more, causing him to soon meet Moshe the Beadle. Moshe was a strongly religious person and taught Elie almost everything he knew. In a way Moshe was Elie’s best friend. He lived a joyous life and loved all of the people surrounding him, until he disappeared with the Germans. All of the Jews believed that they were going to a “resort”, however, they were horifically wrong. The treatment they received from the Lagerkapo, was indescribably awful. Whenever Moshe was the only one to return and he was changed tremendously and kept screaming about how they were going to die and the Germans were going to hurt them, no one believed him and called Moshe crazy and felt pity for him. This was the first time that Elie’s faith in humanity was slightly tested. The first sign of no humanity that Elie noticed, was the first camp he was deported to, Birkenau, and saw young babies burning in a fire. Throughout the Holocaust, Elie loses all his faith that humans have potential. He believes they care more about their own survival than trying to help others. At this point, Elie has no faith in man and that the

world is a desirable place to be. Elie believes that all man is evil and that there is no hope left in his life.