Analyzing Peter Weiss 'Die Ermittlung'

When dealing with Non-Fiction and Memoir it is imperative to realize that no two authors will approach telling their story in the same manner. Elie Weisel and Charlotte Delbo, two survivors of Auschwitz, both chose to write their Memoir as testimonials of their experiences. Despite sharing a method of testimonial and similar experiences in their stories, the two finished pieces are nearly entirely different. This paper will focus on Elie Weisel’s method of reporting his experiences to the reader, as opposed to a brief discussion on Delbo who tends to reflect. The scene of focus in the comparison and contrast will be the arrival scene as the authors enter into Auschwitz. This is a universal scene that would have been similar for everyone that entered into the camp, so it is what I call a unique shared experience, as everyone’s experiences will of course vary. But, aside from being a common experience it is also a common primary reflective moment that both authors spend quite a bit of time discussing.

An author’s form of word usage and manipulation provides stories their feeling, tone, and pace while simultaneously creating a reader’s suspension of belief. Elie Wiesel in his book Night tells us of the year he spent in concentration camps during the Holocaust. Like many people have said and proven true, a lot of things can happen in a year making it almost impossible to retell every experience down to a tee; with this information in mind Wiesel writes of the moments that stuck with him, and would possibly with readers.

Bunting, Eve, and Stephen Gammell. Terrible Things: an Allegory of the Holocaust. Jewish Publication Society, 1989.

In Anne Sexton’s poem “After Auschwitz”, the speaker uses death as a metaphor to show that onlookers were the cause of the persecution of Jews and that men are evil but capable of beauty. Anne Sexton was a confessional poet, often writing about topics that were not embraced and talked about during her time period. One topic that was a painful topic to talk about was the holocaust, which was the persecution and murder of over 6 million Jews in Europe during World War II. Sexton opens up about the Holocaust and how no one is to blame for the death of millions but ourselves. The poem, “After Auschwitz”, was written to call out those who stayed silent during the Holocaust through the use of sound devices, personification, and metaphors.

In the annals of history, the Holocaust registers as one of mankind’s most “unspeakable” offenses. And yet, over the past seventy years, survivors have strived nonetheless to transform torture into language—to verbalize the violence against man’s body and spirit that occurred at the hands of the Nazis.

The Holocaust, yet another unpleasant time in history tainted with the blood and suffering of man. Human beings tortured, executed and starved for hatred and radical ideas. Yet with many tragedies there are survivors, those who refused to die on another man’s command. These victims showed enormous willpower, they overcame human degradation and tragedies that not only pushed their beliefs in god, but their trust in fellow people. It was people like Elie Wiesel author of “Night”, Eva Galler,Sima Gleichgevicht-Wasser, and Solomon Radasky that survived, whose’ mental and physical capabilities were pushed to limits that are difficult to conceive. Each individual experiences were different, but their survival tales not so far-reaching to where the fundamental themes of fear, family, religion and self-preservation played a part in surviving. Although some of these themes weren’t always so useful for survival.

The terrors of the Holocaust are unimaginably destructive as described in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. The story of his experience about the Holocaust is one nightmare of a story to hear, about a trek from one’s hometown to an unknown camp of suffering is a journey of pain that none shall forget. Hope and optimism vanished while denial and disbelief changed focus during Wiesel’s journey through Europe. A passionate relationship gradually formed between the father and the son as the story continued. The book Night genuinely demonstrates how the Holocaust can alter one's spirits and relations.

As the famous journalist Iris Chang once said, “As the Nobel Laureate warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice.” After experiencing the tragedies that occurred during the Holocaust, Eliezer Wiesel narrated “Night”. Eliezer wrote “Night” in an attempt to prevent something similar to the Holocaust from happening again, by showing the audience what the consequences are that come from becoming a bystander. Elie illustrated numerous themes by narrating the state of turmoil he was in during the Holocaust. In Night, Eliezer provided insight into what he experienced in order to teach the unaware audience about three themes; identity, silence, and faith.

The aim of this book review is to analyze Night, the autobiographical account of Elie Wiesel’s horrifying experiences in the German concentration camps. Wiesel recounted a traumatic time in his life with the goal of never allowing people to forget the tragedy others had to suffer through. A key theme introduced in Night is that these devastating experiences shifted the victim 's view of life. By providing a summary, critique, and the credentials of the author Elie Wiesel, this overview of Night will reveal that the heartbreaking events of the Holocaust transformed the victims outlook, causing them to have a lack of empathy and faith.

Many outsiders strive but fail to truly comprehend the haunting incident of World War II’s Holocaust. None but survivors and witnesses succeed to sense and live the timeless pain of the event which repossesses the core of human psyche. Elie Wiesel and Corrie Ten Boom are two of these survivors who, through their personal accounts, allow the reader to glimpse empathy within the soul and the heart. Elie Wiesel (1928- ), a journalist and Professor of Humanities at Boston University, is an author of 21 books. The first of his collection, entitled Night, is a terrifying account of Wiesel’s boyhood experience as a WWII Jewish prisoner of Hitler’s dominant and secretive Nazi party.

Throughout the years curiosity regarding the holocaust has become more evident in the 21st century as people across the globe anxiously learn about the events that took place in Germany during World War II. The importance of this event is not only being taught to Americans and people of the Jewish religion, but it is also being taught in other parts of the world. The popularity of knowledge being obtained regarding the holocaust grows: books, documentaries, and poems. Poems, like that of William Heyen’s “The Trains”, are being introduced to the generations in the 21st century. Heyen pinpoints the curiosity of his audience to make them want to learn about the holocaust

In the book “Night” written Elie Wiesel, Wiesel wants readers to know the pain and struggles he had to face in the holocaust. In 1944, in the village of Sighet, Transylvania, a boy named Elie was taken from his home and was taken to a concentration camp and spends time talking about being invaded by the Nazi. The purpose of the book was the remembrance of the holocaust and how it causes him to lose faith and his identity. Although the concentration camps were a bad place the people were forced to work, the rhetorical devices imagery, symbolism, and diction is used to present loss in faith and identity.

The books Maus I and Maus II, written by Art Spiegelman over a thirteen-year period from 1978-1991, are books that on the surface are written about the Holocaust. The books specifically relate to the author’s father’s experiences pre and post-war as well as his experiences in Auschwitz. The book also explores the author’s very complex relationship between himself and his father, and how the Holocaust further complicates this relationship. On a deeper level the book also dances around the idea of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders. The two books are presented in a very interesting way; they are shown in comic form, which provides the ability for Spiegelman to incorporate numerous ideas and complexities to his work.

Books, films, documentaries, and even memories: each serves to recount past events, each in a different way. While these accounts of the past are shared, they serve to provide the audience with an understanding; oftentimes this understanding does not and cannot portray the effect of certain, unimaginable events in history, such as the Holocaust, on individuals. In his essay, “The Presence of the Past,” Bernhard Schlink brings to the surface some of the inherited struggles that generations of German people have faced as a result of the Third Reich. Alongside his essay, Schlink also presents the effect of the past on people in his novel, The Reader, when he presents the audience with a character placed in a situation that is highly uncommon.

Sexton’s “After Auschwitz” and Sachs’ “Chorus of the rescued”, both are two poems written with a 34 year difference about the Holocaust, with the same theme but vastly different subject matter and stances. The reader starts After Auschwitz immediately seeing anger, setting the tone for this poem almost instantly. Unlike the Chorus of the rescue, Sexton’s poem was assertive and aggressive and specifically orients itself with addressing atrocities of which men are capable of and not bashful at all in casting blame, nor in telling the world exactly how man should be condemned. Sexton writes, “Man is evil”(11), “Man is a flower, that should be burnt”(13-14), “Man is a bird full of mud”(16-17). She funnels all of her rage into these lines above,