Elie Wiesel
The book Night opens in the town of Signet where Elie Wiesel, the author , was born . He lived his child hood in the Signet, Transylvania . He had three sisters Hilda, Bea, and Tzipora. His father was an honored member of the Jewish community. He was a cultured man concerned about his community yet, he was not an emotional man. His parents were owners of a shop and his two oldest sisters worked for his parents. Elie was a school boy and interested in studying the
Zohar “the cabbalistic books, the secrets of Jewish mysticism”(Wiesel 3). His teacher was a foreigner, Moshe the Beadle, a “poor barefoot of Signet”(Wiesel 3).
He was Elie's teacher until he was forced to leave Signet by the Hungarians because he was a foreign Jew.
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People tried to live as normal and felt they would remain in the ghetto until the end of the war. However this would not be the case. Elie's father brought news to his family that they would be deported and the ghetto was to be destroyed. They did not know where they were going , only that they would be leaving in the morning and could only take a few personal belongings.
Fortunately for the Wiesel family their journey was postponed for a couple of days. When they heard the words “All Jews outside!”( Wiesel 16) they knew it was time to leave everything behind. The beginning of their journey was short. they stopped in another ghetto where they stayed for two days until their journey would begin once again. After another stop they were then put on cattle wagons filled with eighty people to a car. It was uncomfortable, there was barely any air, there was nothing to drink or eat, it was hot, and people had to take turns sitting down. When they arrived in the town of Kaschau they heard the words “From this moment you come under the authority of the German army”(Wiesel
21). At this point they knew they were never going home. They traveled some more and soon they would arrive at Birkenau the reception center of Auschwitz. When they arrived they could see flames and “smell burning flesh” (Wiesel 26).
People were being separated “ Men to the left! Women to the right!”(Wiesel
27). This was when Elie and his father were separated from his mother and sisters. It would
During World War II, Hitler was putting Jewish people in concentration camps and was ultimately trying to wipe them out. Many Jewish people didn't want to believe what was happening to them. The book Night, by Elie Wiesel, shows just how many people deceived themselves to continue to have hope. Many Jewish people believed things would get better, and didn't actually believe that things could very well get worse. By having this deception, they didn't think ahead to what could happen to them or how bad things could turn out for them. The Jews showed self-deception by not believing Moshies warnings, when they were forced to give up some of their everyday rights, and by having false optimism when they had to move to the ghettos.
Amel shook his head, sighing. He looked disappointed. I had finally quelled the happiness in him. Or, so I thought, until he gave me a small smile. "I'm sure living here for as long as you have has been taxing. The people here are so sad and violent, but they don't want to listen, Cerin. Hope, joy, and love... they don't have to hide very well here. There are so many distractions, so many fake things they tell themselves, that any virtue is easily covered up. God could give us so much food, we'd never ever starve, or so enough money for absolutely everyone to live in a nice house, or even heal all the sick and raise our dead loved ones, and we still wouldn't believe in Him. But He shouldn't even have to do any of that, He already made us, and
these people with their lives and the lives of their loved ones, the Jews were “persuaded”
Decree of May 27th ordered from June 7th every Jew of the occupied zone, older than six years of age should wear a yellow star on clothes' left side, the word Jew in black letters.
Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in the town of Sighet in Transylvania, which is located in Romania. His parents, Shlomo Wiesel and Sarah Feig had three other children not including Elie. The three other siblings were his sisters Hilda, Bea, Tsiporah. Wiesel and his family primarily were an Orthodox Jewish family. When he was very young he started to study Hebrew and the Bible. He mostly focused on his religious studies. According to the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, “He was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz.” During the time they spent at Auschwitz, Elie’s mother and younger sister didn’t make it, but his two older sisters were fortunate enough to survive. “Elie and his
The role of witnesses like Elie Wiesel is to remind us the he saw how cultured the Europeans degradedand murdered so many. Also he showed us to fight the amoral indifference in this world. That others stood bydoing nothing. They did nothing to combat the suffering of those being persecuted. If we don’t remember thosewho died being tortured and still alive after it and we don’t try to prevent it from happening again we risk becomingguilty of collaboration with the
-Moishe the Beadle taught Elie the Cabala and Jewish mysticism. When he is deported before all the other Sighet Jews, he warns them of what the Gestapo are doing to the Jews and it’s Elie first real brush with what was happening outside of Sighet.
As you can see this is a story of much intolerance and hatred put against the jewish people. Elie starts this story as an innocent child who remains hopefull in the unkowns of the situation that he is put in. Later on we see him slowly lose both his family and his hope in the story. This makes the story a very accurate representation of the times of when Nazi germany was at its height from how the Jewish people felt during their imprisonment to how the officers would treat
The dates that Jews were moved to ghettos varied from a period of five years. The first ghetto, in Piotrków Trybunalski, was built in 1939, and the last ghetto, in Lodz, was destroyed in 1944 (“Ghettos”). The Schutzstaffel, or SS, were told to take Polish Jews to ghettos in 1939 (Allen 37). Moshe Offer and his family were moved to a ghetto in 1944 (Lagnado 30).
We see how people in the destruction ghettos lived in worst conditions then the people in the regular ghettos. The destruction ghettos were in worse condition and if you were taken here you had no hope of surviving. “These ghettos were short-lived. After two-to-six weeks, the Jews of each ghetto were shot or put on trains and deported to death camps. For this reason, these Hungarian ghettos have
Between July 22 and mid September 1942 over 300,000 people were deported from the Warsaw ghetto more than 250,000 of them are deported to the treblinka killing center. In September at the end of the 1942 mass deportaion only about 55,000 jews remian in the ghetto. April 19, 1943 the German’s decide to eliminate the Warsaw ghetto and announce new deportation many jews did not report for deportation. They hid in previously prepared bunkers and shelters jewish fighters battle the German’s in the streets and from the hidden bunkers. The German’s set fire to the ghettos. It turned to ghettos area to rubble on may 14, 1943 the battle was over thousands have died and most of the ghetto's population is deported to forced labor
This article explains the origin of the word “ghetto” and explains how it was used throughout history. It is stated in the article that, “‘ghetto’ is itself a european term, coined in the sixteenth century to describe the part of venice to which Jews were confined.”. The word “ghetto” had originally been used to refer to an area where Jewish people were restricted to. Mitchell Duneier wrote a book which, according to the article, “... makes it easy to see how
They wanted to escape what had been set up for them but were not able
During World War II, chaos occurred throughout the world. In many areas, innocent civilians were punished or killed due to their race and ethnic backgrounds. One example of that would be the Jewish people. Jewish massacres erupted under the control of the German Nazis in Europe. Many people of Jewish decent were deported into concentration camps which were intended to exterminate them. Nazis also created areas in Poland called the ghettos. The ghettos were controlled by the Jewish council which abided by Nazis strict rules. The council members made sure everyone living in the ghettos did not break any rules or else they would suffer severe punishment. The Kovno ghetto was inhumane and living conditions were horrible due to the fact that there was
As the riders—which Armaila counted as about eighteen, but it was hard to tell—came up to the edge of the firelight, they looked around cautiously. Two dismounted their horses, and slowly and silently approached what seemed like sleeping bodies. Florine did not give the signal to attack yet.