Every year, about fifty million people die. During the holocaust, over 16 million people were killed. That is almost half of the average amount of deaths that occur each year added to the total rate. The holocaust is responsible for the killing and damaging of many people such as Elie Wiesel. From a sheltered boy to a mentally scarred young-man, Elieser’s overall character drastically changed. In “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elieser, was transformed throughout the book by his experiences he had in the concentration camp located in Auschwitz. Initially, before Elie was taken to the concentration camp he was a powerless, curious, and kind boy. Wiesel wrote, “ I don’t know how I survived: I was weak, rather shy.” (vii) This evidence explains how Elie believed that he wasn’t the strongest one out of the group and was weaker, leading him to question how he made it through the holocaust. Also, this sentence shows that his physical figure may have been smaller along with his mental state being undetermined or weak. In continuation, Elie states in the book, “For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.” (xv) This evidence talks about how Elie does not want history to repeat itself and wishes that this tragic event will never happen again. Adding onto that, these sentences prove that Elie was a kind enough person to share his torture filled experiences with the world to further educate the youth and the older generations. Even though it pains him thinking of that depressing time in his life, he continues to stress how he would never want that to happen in the future and tell of his story. In the book, Wiesel wrote, “ Why do you pray?, he asked after a moment. Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (4) This text discusses how when Elie was praying, Moishe the Beadle began asking him very meaningful questions he didn’t know the answer to. This evidence leads me to believe that Elie was a very curious and lost person because it gives off a feeling of not knowing his true self or his meaning. Also, Elie is constantly wondering about life’s many secrets and eventually begins questioning God. Prior to the
Night by Elie Wiesel remains a shocking and terrifying memoir of a survivor of the Holocaust, the murders of six million Jews and five million Gentiles. Elie, a victim of this dreadful event, was forced to separate from his family, and to miss the life he once had. Elie transformed into a unrecognizable, scarred person by the end of his journey. Elie’s traumatizing experiences in the concentration camps of Auschwitz affected him significantly; he changed both spiritually and in his relationship with his father.
While Elie was in the concentration camp he changed the way he acted. This new behavior led him to develop new character traits. While Ellie was in the concentration camp he became angry at many things. For example “I would have dug my nails into the criminals flesh” (Wisel 39). Elie shows extreme anger when the Nazi officials are beating Elie’s father. Elie was angry because the Nazi soldiers were not treating them nicely and keeping them in poor conditions. Elie was usually not a person to display anger, but he shows this when his family members are being hurt. Elie wants to stand up for what is right and for his family members. Despite his studying, Elie wavered in his belief in Kabbalah while he was at the camp. Elie was a religious boy before he went to Auschwitz, but while in the camp, he became angry at God. In the book Elie says, “‘Where are You, my God?’” (66). Elie is wondering why God is not helping the Jews. Elie had complete faith in his religion until he experienced and witnessed such horrible suffering. He had been taught that God will punish evil and save the righteous. However, when Elie saw that God was not helping the Jews situation,
Imagine, losing the part of you that makes you unique, or being treated like you were worth absolutely nothing. Think about losing all that you hold on to: your family, friends, everything that you had. Imagine, being treated like an animal, or barely receiving enough food to live. All of these situations and more is what the Jews went through during the Holocaust. During the period of 1944 - 1945, a man by the name of Elie Wiesel was one of the millions of Jews that were experiencing the wrath of Hitler’s destruction in the form of intense labor and starvation. The novel Night written by the same man, Elie Wiesel, highlights the constant struggle they faced every single day during the war. From the first acts of throwing the Jews into
The holocaust ended May 8, 1945 but it took the lives of millions of people with it. Depriving millions of innocent souls of basic rights we have today. In the book Night, we are shown the experiences and transformations of young Elie from the day he arrived in the ghetto, to his last day in a concentration camp. As a result of his experiences during the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel changes from a religious, sensitive little boy to a spiritually dead, unemotional man.
The Holocaust began around 1933 when Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany and leader of the Nazi Party. During that time, the first concentration camp, Dachau, was established to torture and kill Jewish people. Soon after, in 1935, Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews were decreed and depriving Jews of German citizenship. Germany then invaded Poland, starting World War II in Europe. With the start of World War II came many more concentration camps, and millions of deaths. Six million European Jews lost their lives during this horrific time. Many survivors shared their stories after they were freed, so that the world would know of the horrors they experienced. Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, told his story in his book, Night. Elie Wiesel was a teenager during the Holocaust, but lived on into his eighties and continued to speak out against what the Nazi’s did to his family.
Before Elie went to Auschwitz, he exhibited many positive character traits. (Such as Compassion, Depressed, and Friendly. An example of compassion that Elie showed before was on page 5 that said, “And Moishe the Beadle, the poorest of the poor of Sighet, spoke to me for hours on end about the Kabbalah’s revelations and its mysteries. Thus began my initiation. Together we would read, over and over against, the same page of the Zohar. Not to learn it by heart but to discover within the very essence of divinity”(Wiesel). How he shows compassion is, Elie treats a man of lower social status with kindness, and the man repays him with studies of the Zohar. So a random act of kindness, could pay off someday, you never know. The next example of how Elie showed traits before Auschwitz was depression on page 10, “The Bible commands us to rejoice during the eight days of Passover, but our hearts were not in it. We wished the holiday would end so as not to have to pretend”(Wiesel 10). Elie was so depressed and scared, that
Before Elie was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, he displayed some positive character traits such as; faithful, courageous, and smart. To begin, Wiesel states: “He had watched me one day as I prayed at dusk” (4) Elie is talking to Moishe the Beadle (teacher in Sighet) and wasn’t afraid to express his faith. Obviously Elie is faithful because he is praying, but this shows that he is also very passionate about his faith and doesn’t care if people know if he is Jewish. Elie had this trait before he was sent to Auschwitz, and he made his faith number one. Further into his stay at the Auschwitz concentration camp, Elie starts to let his faith drift away, leaving him with almost nothing. Next, Wiesel states: “There could no longer be any doubt: Germany would be defeated. It was only a matter of time, months, weeks perhaps.” (8) Elie and his family were getting worried about the Nazi’s invading many Jewish homes. Elie becomes very confident to the situation and tells himself that the Germans will be defeated. Confidence is deeply displayed in this piece of text evidence because he begins to make it a fact that the
When you go through something as horrible as the Holocaust, you change in many ways that didn’t seem possible. These changes could include struggling to maintain faith or the ability to no longer function as a man. The book “Night” by Elie Wiesel follows the journey of Elie who faced these struggles while suffering in concentration camps.
The murder of thousands can not only impact the universe, but the ones that live in it. For instance, victims of the Happiest had to deal with, not only losing all of their loved ones but the deaths of others around them. In “Night”, Elie is expiring death, of not only his loved ones, also other Jews who were taken by Hitler. The loss of your family is petrifying. But watching others have their lives slipped away from their fingertips, is indubitably scary. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Elie changes drastically throughout the book, because of the time he spent in Auschwitz, one of the most infamous concentration camps.
Before Elie’s experience in the Auschwitz concentration camp, he had many character traits such as being unwise, innocent, and impatient. When Elie first arrives at Auschwitz and receives his first meal, his father warns him to ration his food. For example, “I was terribly hungry and swallowed my ration on the spot” (Wiesel 44). During Elie’s first meal in Auschwitz, he gobbles it down and does not think about what might happen later. When his father starts to give him some advice, he is already finished with his meal. Elie acts unwisely and does not think ahead to what might happen in the later days. Earlier in the story, Elie and his family are waiting their turn to be put onto a train that will be sent to a concentration camp. Before they enter the train Elie asks, “ ‘When will it be our turn, father?’ I asked my father” (Wiesel 18). This quote shows that Elie really has no idea what is happening and what will happen to him. Elie has no idea that “his turn” will end up with him in a concentration camp. He is innocent and does not think about what bad might happen to him. Upon entering Auschwitz, Elie sees people being thrown into the fire and decides to die a quick death rather than suffer. Wiesel states, “ ‘If that is true, then I don’t want to wait. I’ll run into the electrified wire. . .’” (33). Elie is afraid of what is to come upon him arriving in the concentration camp. Because of this fear, his thoughts become driven by fear and cause him to think impulsive thoughts. Elie would rather die in the fence, than be worked or starved to death. Elie acts very unwisely in his reactions to seeing people killed. To sum up, before Elie changed as a person, he had traits such as being impatient, unwise, and innocent.
Traumatic and scarring events occur on a daily basis; from house fires to war, these memories are almost impossible to forget. The Holocaust is only one of the millions of traumas that have occurred, yet it is known worldwide for sourcing millions of deaths. Elie Wiesel was among the many victims of the Holocaust, and one of the few survivors. In the memoir, “Night”, by Elie Wiesel, Elie, the main character, is forever changed because of his traumatic experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camps.
In the beginning of the book, before the start of all the torture and the departure to the camps, Elie portrays different traits from after the camp’s scar. One of the earliest traits we see Elie exhibit is being a religious and inquisitive young man. Wiesel said “By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple.” (3) Through his words, you can see that he talks about studying the Talmud, which is a religious text of Judaism. Elie was extremely curious to venture into the mystic world of Kabbalah. Where he could learn about the “Shekinah in Exile” (God.) Only, at that time young boys were not allowed to be so curious in such topics, but Elie persevered through for his faith. Eventually, once everyone heard the one word they all dreaded, “Transports”, Elie showed his responsible side. “Get up, sir, get up! You must ready yourself for the journey. Tomorrow you will be expelled, you and your family, you and all the other Jews.” (Wiesel, 15) Even with his family to take care of, he went around his block to help other families get up and pack for the long journey ahead, to save the other’s lives. Elie wasn’t sure what was coming for him, but he knew he had to stay together. Also, the camp left a mental and physical scar on many of its survivors, during the time of departure to the camps,
“An estimated 1/3 of all Jewish people alive at that time were murdered in the Holocaust” (Lehnardt 11). Many people died and struggled to live in a terrible way during the Holocaust and Elie Wiesel was one of them. Elie, the author of the book Night, wrote about his and his family’s life during the Holocaust and the struggles of everyone's lives. Throughout the book, Elie Wiesel states the idea many times that dehumanization is an awful thing and can take over any person, but pushing through it shows strength.
A tragic event can change someone’s life forever in a good way or a bad way. The holocaust shaped people's lives into a way where they can never go back. In “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, changed as a person due to his experiences at Auschwitz. Elie was a victim of the holocaust and it changed his life forever as a person and a Jew.
Before Elie went to the concentration camp, Auschwitz, he had many character traits such as innocents , fearful, and unknowing. Elie wrote in the book ¨Night¨ on page (xix), ¨I shall never forget that night the first night at camp...¨ Elie was very afraid as soon as he got to the camp. He didn't know what was in store for him and didn't understand what was going on. His innocents showed threw making it easy to see he didn't know