A Silent Death: Elie Wiesel's Night

During World War II, the Jewish race was one of the most persecuted of all the minorities harassed by Hitler and the Third Reich, and a day to day basis, Jews across Europe lived in constant fear, wondering if today would be their last. Especially in cities close to the expanding Nazi empire, there was no telling when their last breath would come. In the memoir, the closely knitted town of Sighet is controlled by the Germans, leaving anyone of Jewish descent to obey their commands in total fear of their personal safety. Elie Wiesel describes this genuine fear when he wakes up a close friend of his father, “‘Get up sir, get up!...You're going to be expelled from here tomorrow with your whole family, and all the rest of the Jews…’ Still half asleep he stared at me with terror-stricken eyes.”

"Never shall I forget that night the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed," -Elie Wiesel, Night. This quote is one of the quotes from Elie Wiesel's book Night that refers to the title of the book. The title of the book is called Night for reasons such as the fact that the first night was what changed his life, it symbolizes the darkness that encased all of their souls, and it also symbolizes how dark and evil the world was. The title Night has a stronger meaning than what it seems.

In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.

One day, when Elie returned from the warehouse, he was summoned by the block secretary to go to the dentist. Elie therefore went to the infirmary block to learn that the reason for his summon was gold teeth extraction. Elie, however pretends to be sick and asks, ”Couldn’t you wait a few days sir? I don’t feel well, I have a fever…” Elie kept telling the dentist that he was sick for several weeks to postpone having the crown removed. Soon after, it had appeared that the dentist had been dealing in the prisoners’ gold teeth for his own benefit. He had been thrown into prison and was about to be hanged. Eliezer does not pity for him and was pleased with what was happening

In 1944, World War II was close to over, but not for everyone. Six million Jewish people had been taken from their homes and put to the most dehumanizing work in history by being transported to concentration camps to work 12+ hour shifts. With little to no food, complete segregation, and torturous treatment by sadistic guards, this time of life was a literal hell for these Jews. The SS guards stationed there were so brutal, that the prisoners felt constantly in fear for their lives. In the award winning memoir, Night, written by Elie Wiesel, he narrates his experience as a young Jewish boy during the Holocaust. At the concentration camps, they were separated and put to work, not office work, interminable amounts of forced labor, no mistakes, and if so, shot or beaten to death. The Nazis decimated the Jewish population, and in doing so, exposed Hitler’s true intentions and cruelty. Wiesel discloses the radical changes that the Jews undergo, from normal people, with family and friends, into violent, self-centered crazies who look out for no one else and must fight for

Night is a recollection of Elie Wiesel’s time spent during the holocaust. It is a gripping tale of survival and death. While it is a small book, it has a huge message. During the time in which the book takes place, the Jewish people were srtripped of their humanity. Elie and his fellow inmates at Auschwitz endure dehumanization throughout starvation and on the train to Buchenwald.

In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel depicts the steady escalation of dehumanization to which the Nazis subjected the Jews during the Holocaust and how it helped the Nazis crush the Jews’ spirits and justify their persecution and eventual genocide. Before the arrival of German soldiers, Wiesel and the other Jews of Sighet live in relative harmony with their Christian neighbors. But once the Nazis arrive, they steadily remove the Jews’ human rights until their fellow citizens no longer view them as human anymore. Thus, there is little action taken by the non-Jewish residents of Sighet when the persecutions and deportations begin. Additionally, the gradual pace of the dehumanization managed to convince the Jews that nothing significant was happening and that this was just a temporary phase that would soon pass. This could not be further from the truth. Once the Nazis finally issue the order to deport the Jews of Sighet, Wiesel notices that his neighbors’ spirits have been completely crushed: “There they went, defeated, their bundles, their lives in tow, having left behind their homes, their childhood. They passed me by, like beaten dogs, with never a glance in my direction. They must have envied me” (Wiesel 17). Wiesel describes his fellow Jews as downtrodden and defeated since they are now completely subject to the Nazi officers. The Nazis have stripped their rights, driven them from their homes, and treated them like animals. Being called and treated like animals, specifically

Elie Wiesel’s Night is about what the Holocaust did, not just to the Jews, but, by extension, to humanity. The disturbing disregard for human beings, or the human body itself, still to this day, exacerbates fear in the hearts of men and women. The animalistic acts by the Nazis has scarred mankind eternally with abhorrence and discrimination.

Reading Elie Wiesel’s Night, has moved me deeply; for the first time in my life to read such horror, pain, and numbness my mind could not digest everything. To think that our own men killed, abused, and tortured their own people is heart wrenching. On page 33, a sentence stuck out to me most that I believe summarizes the whole message of the book. A fifteen year old boy, living day by day, confesses to his father, “I'll run into the electrified barbed wire. That would be easier than a slow death in the flames." Just reading these words, I could imagine this helpless young boy quickly losing faith. He had no desire to live, no motivation to continue, and absolutely no faith in God. A boy that age or anyone should have to think about an easier

“Splendid news from the Russian Front. There could no longer be any doubt: Germany would be defeated. It was only a matter of time, months or weeks, perhaps. The trees were in bloom. It was a year like so many others, with its spring, its engagements, its weddings, and its births” (8).

As humans, we require basic necessities, such as food, water, and shelter to survive. But we also need a reason to live. The reason could be the thought of a person, achieving some goal, or a connection with a higher being. Humans need something that drives them to stay alive. This becomes more evident when people are placed in horrific situations. In Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, he reminisces about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. There the men witness horrific scenes of violence and death. As time goes on they begin to lose hope in the very things that keep them alive: their faith in God, each other, and above all, themselves.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, silence is a reoccurring theme that represents many aspects of Wiesel’s struggle during the most coldblooded massacre in the history of the world. Although silence may seem unimportant, Wiesel’s remarks about this theme symbolizes far more. He believes it is silence that allows the Nazis to takeover and begin the slaughtering. Wiesel emphasizes that silence is the only appropriate response to the Holocaust because the events that took place at Auschwitz have caused language and words to seemingly have lost their meaning; the words people use to describe what happened cannot even compare to the reality of the event. Language no longer has any power to express the truth of what happened to the Jewish people during this inhumane mass execution. Wiesel uses silence to intensify dramatic effect, to suggest the indescribable, and to symbolize the loss of faith.

When looking at the holocaust, it is widely known the devastation and pain that was caused by the Nazis; however when inspecting the holocaust on a deeper level, it is evident that the Jews were exposed to unimaginable treatment and experimentation often overlooked in history discussions. When looking at “Night”, Elie Wiesel was helped by the doctors in the camp when his foot was severely infected; although this is not the experience he had, many Jews were mistreated and even killed by the doctors. Many Nazi doctors that were assigned to Jewish patients were later found to have exposed the patients to horrific medical experiments and unnecessary treatments that commonly led to their death.

Throughout time, Jewish communities have been treated with immense hate and exclusion from other cultures because no one accepted their religion. Coming to the time before WWII, events like Kristallnacht demonstrated the despise for Jews that dwelled inside the general population of Germany when the Germans went to Jewish houses and stores to burn and destroy them. In the course of WWII, they were harassed, abused, tortured and ruined, as all of their business stocks and assets were taken away. During the expanse of this horrific battle, Jews were forced to live in designated areas known as concentration camps where they had to overcome obstacles such as hunger, freezing temperatures, and the loss of precious family members. These camps were used to fulfill Hitler’s intent to annihilate the Jewish population from the face of the planet and this dangerous idea was called “purify the country”. In total, there were about 25 of these camps built where 6 million Jews died, including 1.5 million children. Auschwitz was a camp which was responsible for 1 million deaths alone, and this is the camp where Elie Wiesel was first sent to endure the hatred of the Nazis. This camp changed the way Elie Wiesel viewed the world because he saw and experienced things that will stayed with him forever. He was transformed into a new person who neglected his religion, failed to protect the one he held dear to him, and put his

If we held one minute of silence for each life lost in the Holocaust, we would be sitting in silence for 11.5 years. The statement “never give up, regardless the situation” is very easy to agree with. We are told this told by our peers all the time, in everyday life. This is important to think about during school, sports,relationships, or even life or death situations like Elie was in throughout the book “Night”.