Essay on Escape from Sobibor

The concentration camps of the Holocaust were home to countless injustices to humanity. Not only were the prisoners starved to the brink of death, but they were also treated as animals, disciplined through beatings nearly every day. Most would not expect an ill-prepared young boy to survive such conditions. Nevertheless, in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Wiesel defies the odds and survives to tell the story. Wiesel considers this survival merely luck, yet luck was not the only factor to come into play: his father had an even greater impact. Prior to their arrival at Auschwitz, Wiesel lacked a close relationship with his rather detached father; however, when faced by grueling concentration camp life, the bond between Wiesel and his father ultimately enables Wiesel’s survival.

"If I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like I would have eaten more. I wouldn't have complained about brushing my teeth, or taking a bath..." (Gruener, 2). These are the words of Yanek Gruener looking back at what he had dealt with the past six years. The book, “Prisoner B-3087”, by Alan Gratz is based on a true story of a boy, Jack Gruener, who survived 10 concentration camps in six years. Yanek Gruener had went through way more than he would have ever imagined, beatings, starvation, death marches, and scarce food supply. However, he survived. Yanek could have never survived if it wasn't for his resourceful way of thinking, his courageous mindset, and the help from everyone else, including himself, through

The concentration camps from World War II are part of a painful and tragic incident that we have learned about in school for many years. And while we are taught the facts, we may not fully understand the emotional impact it had upon the humans involved. Upon reading Night by Elie Wiesel, readers are given vivid descriptions of the gruesome and tragic behaviors that the Jews were forced to endure inside he treacherous concentration camps. Among all of the cruelties that the Jews were exposed to, a very significant form of the callous behaviors was the demoralization of the prisoners. Each inmate was given a tattoo of a number, and that tattoo became their new identity within the camp. Every prisoner was presented with tattered uniforms that became

One day in September 1942, everyone had to take their belongings and walk five miles to a nearby ghetto in Lubaczow. In the ghetto it was thirty people per room with only five beds, so they had to sleep like sardines. After months in these awful living conditions, they left once again and were sent to a camp called Belzec. At this point there was little hope of survival for Eva and her family. They were loaded on to a cattle train with nearly eighty people in the car. During their journey a little boy on the train ripped the barbed wire in front of the window. This would be the perfect escape route if it weren't for the

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

After nearly two years of misery, a young boy finally saw the first ray of hope on the horizon; the Americans had finally arrived, and the Nazis were gone. In his autobiography Night, Elie Wiesel shares his experiences in Auschwitz-Birkenau, one of Hitler’s concentration camps. Wiesel was one of the minority of Jews to survive the Holocaust during World War II. His family did not make it through with him, and this had lasting effects. Wiesel’s identity changed completely during his experiences in Auschwitz; he lost his faith in God and he became indifferent to his survival and the survival of his family members. Despite these hardships, however, he ultimately became a stronger person than he was before.

What would it do to a person to go to a concentration camp, see the horrible things, and come out alive? This book, Night, is about Eliezer Wiesel, who is both the main character and the author. Elie’s book is a memorial about his experience in Hitler’s concentration camps, what he went through, and how he survived. This paper is going to be about Eliezer’s horrific experience and the ways that it changed him.

Elie, his father, and the prisoners had to run in the snow more than 40 miles to another concentration camp, deeper in Germany. When they stopped a man, Rabbi Eliahou, asked if Elie and his father if they had seen his son. Elie had and he realized that the Rabbi’s son had “wanted to get rid of his father…to free himself from an encumbrance” (Wiesel 87). They then got on cattle trains that took them to the next concentration camp, Buchenwald. They passed by villages and when people threw bread in, the prisoners began to fight to the death for it. One son began to attack his own father for a piece and killed him, only to be killed the next moment himself. Soon after they arrived in Buchenwald, Eliezer’s father was very weak and sick. A part of Elie felt that if he could get rid of his father he “could use all [his] strength to struggle for [his] own survival” (Wiesel 101). He was very ashamed, even more so when his father died and he felt “free at last” (Wiesel 105).

Everyone experiences emotional and physiological obstacles in their life. However, these obstacles are incomparable to the magnitude of the obstacles the prisoners of the Holocaust faced every day. In his memoir, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, illustrates the horrors of the concentration camps and their mental tool. Over the course of Night, Wiesel demonstrates, that exposure to an uncaring, hostile world leads to destruction of faith and identity.

The Germans in charge of coming up with a sufficient means of transportation had a heavy sense of superiority in that their prisoners were lower than animals. They had only tried to maintain the cheapest, most efficient method of transit of the Jews to their concentration camp. The deportees who survived were left with a scarring imprint of this trip, as it was the first branch of their torture, for most, the rest of their lives. After two interviews with two different survivors, it is inferred that the same approach was used for all the prisoners being transported to their destination of their demise. The people who were forced to endure this dehumanizing means of transit underwent a complete stripping of humanity that foreshadowed their ultimate

As the enforcements of the Holocaust start appearing in Wiesel’s hometown, his father’s behavior begins to slowly change, making it easier for Wiesel to connect with him. While watching other families being deported, Wiesel, his father, and the rest of his family witness the Hungarian Police strike old men and women, without reason, with truncheons, for the first time. The next day, as they are being deported from the ghettos, Wiesel writes, “My father wept. It was the first time I had ever seen him weep. I had never imagined that he could” (16). Wiesel’s prior belief that his father was emotionless is proven to be wrong before they even arrive at the concentration camps. Wiesel is able to relate to his father in this moment, for he too is terrified of what lies ahead. As Wiesel and his family arrive at Birkenau, the Nazis

The actions the Nazis committed during WWII were unbearable for even the strongest people. Prisoners were tortured, starved, and slaughtered just for being Jewish. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, had to endure the atrocities at the age of 15. Wiesel describes these events in his memoir Night. A result of the dehumanization and other cruelty that he faces leads Elie Wiesel to a loss of his faith.

With essentially nothing to live for and no reason to go on, many of the prisoners gave up

My goal with my research is to look into the resistance of both the Jewish people and the others in European society who assisted in Jewish escapes. The perceived image of the Jews during the Holocaust is of “lambs to the slaughter.” The pictured painted of the rest of European society is one of either knowing accomplices or silent spectators. The Jewish people had many forms of resistance, some small and some large. While many of their neighbors were silent spectators, but many people were actively resisting the tyrannical Nazi government by assisting Jewish escapes. Each of these individuals risked their lives and the lives of their families and friends to aid these hunted individuals. They all deserve to have their stories heard and honored. In a time of complete chaos and destruction many people would not have the ability or fortitude to save the life of another person. The people that I will discuss in this paper were not only able to take that step, but put themselves and their families in real and eminent danger for the life, at times, of a complete stranger.

You are an eight-year-old boy forced to move with your family from your home in Berlin to the countryside because your father received a promotion as the head Nazi officer at a work camp. Without any friends, you sneak away during the day to explore the land behind your house and find what you understand to be a “farm.” It turns out to be a work camp where you meet another boy your age. You quickly become friends with the boy named Shmuel, who is forced to live in the work camp because he is Jewish. You do not understand the hatred towards the Jews during this time, and because of this, an unlikely friendship forms. Shmuel’s father disappears and you offer to come into the camp to help look for him. When searching in the barracks, things