Fear In Night

Before the atrocities within the Holocaust take place Wiesel's relationship with his father is distant and cold. Ellie writes “My father wept. It was the first time I had ever seen him weep. I had never imagined that he could”(Wiesel 16). By stating that he couldn't imagine his father cry, it hammers home the idea of how removed Elie was from his father's emotions. There is an emotional disconnect between them; expressing emotion wasn't prevalent. This allows for a harsh contrast to the emotions felt by both Wiesel and his father after they arrive at Auschwitz. When Wiesel describes his father at the beginning of the book he describes him by stating “My father was a cultured, rather unsentimental man. There was never any display of emotion, even at

Wiesel’s inclusion of this quote shows readers that he was appalled by the inhuman prisoners and concentration camp leaders. One of the reasons for Wiesel becoming so traumatized by the evils of humanity is his prior belief that people would help each other in times of need. Halperin writes, “Before coming to Auschwitz, Eliezer had believed that twentieth-century man was civilized. He had supposed that people would try to help one another in difficult times; certainly his father and teachers had taught him that every Jew is responsible for all other Jews” (Halperin 33). Convinced that people were kind and that Jews would help one another, Wiesel was greatly disappointed after coming to a tragic realization in the concentration camps. Wiesel was robbed, pushed, beaten, and betrayed by his fellow Jews at the camps. Contrary to his prior belief that Jews should be working together, the other Jews invested in themselves. They cared, solely, about their own well being. In including the evils of the other prisoners, Wiesel is able to show readers that due to the lack of innocence within the concentration camps, it was inevitable for him to lose his

many times during the book it talks about Wiesel’s problems. Elie’s first problem would be when he was in Buna, a concentration camp. This was a problem for Wiesel because he didn't have food, water, and at sometimes air. In the book Elie says “ At ten o’clock we were given our daily ration of bread” (Wiesel 34 ). This quote shows how that they only got bread once a day from their SS Officers, and that they didn't have food. Another problem Wiesel had is the loss of family. Elie got taken away from his mom and sister when they were deported on the train but got to stay with his father. Elie says “ I certainly do. But on one condition: I want to stay with my father” (Wiesel 35). With Elie being taken away from his mom and sister, he wanted to stay with his father through the whole thing. Wiesel’s father was his strength to stay alive. Elie had tough adversities he had to go through in his life and he was strong and overcame them.

In the book, our narrator, Elie, is constantly going through changes, and almost all of them are due to his time spent in Auschwitz. Prior to the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie was a very different boy, he had a more optimistic outlook on life. During the first few pages of the book, Elie tells us a bit about how he viewed the world before deportation, “ I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.” ( 3). Elie was, as he says himself, deeply observant and devoted most of his time to his faith. He spent almost all of his time studying and worshiping. At this point, Elie’s faith is the center of his life. Elie is also shown to do a few other things and has a few more early character traits aside from being dedicated to what he believes in. Elie also sees the best of people, a few pages later he says, “The news is terrible,’ he said at last. And then one word: ‘transports’ The ghetto was to be liquidated entirely… ‘Where will they take us?” (Wiesel 14). This is one of the only time we hear about Elie being worried or scared because of the Germans before Auschwitz, and still, despite the warnings that were given and the rumors circulating, Elie doesn’t think that the Germans are actually going to do all of those terrible things. Around this time in the book, Wiesel starts to become more emotionally weighted, but none of what has happened takes full effect until much later. There are multiple instances in the book where Elie is given reason to distrust or even hate the Germans, he talks about how the Gestapo treated him and his family on page 19 “‘Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!’ the Hungarian police were screaming.”. Yet he then goes on to say, on that very same page, that “Still our first

German officers aren’t explaining what is really happening so the Jews feel lost. To the Wiesel family, that means breaking them up. This is an external conflict because the Nazis are causing pain towards them by separating families. This situation makes Wiesel contemptuous of Hitler before he even settles in the camp. “An SS came toward us wielding a club. He commanded: ‘Men to the left! Women to the right!’ Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion,” (29). This quote illustrates that the Germans don’t explain what they are doing to the Jews. The soldiers segregate the Jews and never tell them what they are going to do to them. This is a conflict for no just Wiesel, but for all Jews brought to the camps. They struggle with having to deal with the soldiers dividing all of them. One day, the Germans hear that the liberating army would be passing by. The Nazis take control and move all prisoners out of the camp and on a “death march”. The prisoners are walking hundreds of miles until they receive a break. The Nazis give them a break and prisoners rest, but some people don’t think it is worth trying to survive. “He was not moving. Suddenly, the evidence overwhelmed me: there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight,” (98 - 99). This quote shows that Elie needs his father

To make matters even worse him and his father were separated from his mom and sister, men to the left women to the right, he did not realize “that this was the moment in time and place where” he was leaving his mother and sister forever. (29). Since his father was a tad bit old to survive in the camp alone Wiesel took on the role of the father. Any chance he could get to save his father he did, if his father needed food he would get it, if he father was about to be sent to the crematorium he would make sure that it would not happen. Wiesel learned that only the strong survive and the weak get killed.

From the start, Wiesel was told by a prisoner to lie about his age, and this strange encounter helped him make it as far as he did. Wiesel tells us, “No, Two steps from the pit we were ordered to turn to the left and made to go into a barracks” (Wiesel, 22). They assumed they were to go into the crematory, which would be the end for them, but in a sudden twist of events they were told to turn and go into a barracks. It wasn't wrong or right for them to lie about theirages because it was survival, and regret was already entering their minds and it stayed with them even after they found out they were going to stay alive, but they did what was right for them to survive in the

At the beginning of the book Wiesel mentioned that his dad was a cultured man, his dad was also said to be “rather unsentimental” (4). On page 32 Wiesel mention he was still happy since he got to be near his father. Wiesel got to be in a working spot next to his father too, which once again he was stationed ny his father and was very happy about it as mentioned on page 50. Wiesel also seemed to be worried about his father’s factory getting bombed on page 60 since the buna factory had been bombed and went up in flames. On page 94 Wiesel was calling for his father making sure he was near, which to mean means he was still very worried about losing his father. On page 96 wiesel’s father was about to get exterminated in the crematoria but Wiesel made a scene to distract the SS officers working, so his dad could sneak to the opposing line which was for the prisoners that could live longer. “I tightened my grip on my father’s hand. The old, familiar fear: not to lose him.” (104). Wiesel was getting closer and closer to his father throughout the book which you can tell by looking at the above quotes throughout the book. On page 111 an SS officer was striking wiesel’s father on the head and Wiesel was to scared to do anything about it, and every muscle in his body tightened leaving him left standing there

At the age of 15, Elie Wiesel and his family were sent to Auschwitz as a part of the Holocaust. He was sent to many labor camps with his father where they were forced to work under inhumane conditions. However, his mother and younger sister were killed upon entering the camps. Wiesel recalled, “I didn’t know that this was the moment in the time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever.” (Wiesel, 29) After this, Wiesel and his father witnessed many atrocities. One of the first horrible sights Elie shared in his story was where he saw babies being

Wiesel was still young when he was forcibly sent to a death camp. He was forcibly separated from his mother and sister at Auschwitz whom he never saw again. Luckily, he was able to stay in contact with his father throughout the book Night. He helped his father a lot, sometime giving up his food or encouraging him to prove he is fit to work because if the SS soldier found you were no help or weak you were most likely to be killed. “I was terribly hungry, yet i refused to touch it. I was

In the beginning he was horrified of the things he saw. On his first day at a concentration camp Elie saw babies being thrown into large pits of fire, people being taken to the crematory and Jews being hit and beaten for no reason. As time past and Wiesel was moved from camp to camp he started to only care about his survival and the horrible things done by the Nazi’s became apart of his everyday life.He saw a boy whose face he said looked like the face of an angel being hung. The little boy struggled to breathe for over thirty minutes before the life in his eyes faded away. Wiesel's own father was beaten because he was sick and not given the proper medical care from the nazi’s. Days later his father was taken to the crematory. Instead of Wiesel being sad he was relieved that he no longer had to take care of his father. Elie lost friends family and saw many more being killed. Wiesel was almost numb to the things happening around him.

As a young Polish Jew, Wiesel was sent to the Auschwitz Death Camp where he fought for his life day in and day out. This background alone establishes unshakable ethos. Additionally, World War II is often viewed as one of the darkest times in American and World History; thus, no one would question someone who lived through the gloomiest time of that war, the Holocaust. The humble Wiesel further establishes his ethos by showing his appreciation to the President and others: “And now, I stand before you, Mr. President – Commander-in-Chief of the army that freed me, and tens of thousands of others – and I am filled with a profound and abiding gratitude to the American people.” This helps to reinforce Wiesel’s already strong ethos, because he speaks directly to the audience and tells them how much he admires them. For the average audience member, this makes them feel appreciated and that he is not talking to them but rather talking with them. The audience reacts to this by furthermore appreciating Wiesel; thus, increasing their willingness to hear what it is he has to say. Furthermore, this quote makes the audience feel as though Wiesel is humbled to be speaking before them. Nevertheless, Wiesel places his ethos on the line by speaking the truth regarding how the United States was indifferent to what was happening in Nazi Germany. Wiesel begins to talk about World War II President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt turning a blind eye at the beginning of the war. Wiesel goes on to

Before Wiesel traveled to this gruesome death camp, he showed an abundance of positive traits. Some of these being his love for his religion, his strong hope for his future, and his powerful, loving family. In the first few pages Elie confesses his love for his religion and his ambition to pursue it to a teacher of the Jewish religion. He says that “...I told him how unhappy I was not to be able to find in Sighet a master to teach me the Zohar…” (5). He was stating that he wanted to branch off of his current religion and learn a new form of it, but he was limited because no one in his area also studied this form of Judaism. We can also learn that he was hopeful because you can tell that he is still trying to learn this other religion. Elie also writes that “Naturally, we refused to be separated” (20). He was speaking about his family in this quote and how he and his sisters had the opportunity to leave their mom and dad so that they could get to a safer place with the family maid. The mother did not want to go, so no one went; Instead they stuck together in the ghettos. They had an immensely strong family bond and it is shown through this passage. The children chose their family over a more certain safety. The next quote came after they were all in cattle carts, and were traveling to the new place. Elie recalls “It was as though madness had infected all of us” (27). Elie was scared during this time, but also reserved. He just kept to himself on while he was in this cart that was heading somewhere that he did not know.

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.

In the beginning of the speech Wiesel explains his childhood. He uses imagery to paint a picture in the audience’s mind of what it was like to live in a war-torn country. He states, “Fifty-four years to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethe’s beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald.” (Wiesel 1) This makes the audience think about what he just said and where Wiesel came from. It also makes the reader feel