Holy Resilience Summary

Everyone has heard of the holocaust and learned about it in history class, but there is no way that anyone could even imagine how terrible it was unless they experienced it themselves. After reading, “The Boy on the Wooden Box”, by Leon Leyson, it is clear that the author’s tone throughout the story is one of pain and agony. The story Leon tells is about his family’s journey during the holocaust, and all the physical and emotional pain that they went through, but also how lucky they were to have survived.

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.

Baker’s memoir portrays the value of memory in humanising the objectiveness of historical truth and its role in developing an individual’s ability to understand how past events shape their cultural identity. Throughout The Fiftieth Gate, Baker’s position as a historian colours his perspective in understanding the past events of the Holocaust; in his use of polyphonous voices, the multiple voices are able to provide insight into different perspectives and their memories. He finds that his parents’ memories are valuable in deepening his understanding of the past and his Jewish culture, as

The horrible accounts of the holocaust are vividly captured by Elie Wiesel in Night, an award winning work by a Holocaust survivor. It describes his time in the Holocaust and helps the reader fully understand the pain he went through. In the text, Elie continuously mentions how he is losing his faith to god. It is evident that he has nearly, if not completely lost his faith during the events of the holocaust. In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel’s faith changes because of the absence of God, the dehumanization of the prisoners, and all of the death that surrounds him.

In the book ‘Night’, Elie’s mother and sister got burned alive during the cruel selection. Wiesel says, “I didn’t know… I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever” (Night, 29). Elie will no longer experience what a normal kid will, the love of a mother, the smile of a smile, and the care that a mother gives to her own kid. Elie’s family is forever broken, without his mother and sister, his family won’t be a whole anymore, this traumatic experience will change Elie’s life forever. These experiences can also change someone’s character, some changes are permanently, but some only at the moment. Elie was faithful to God before, but after all the tragedies that he’s been through, he questions himself, asking “why would I bless him” (Night, 67)? Elie’s religious belief and faith in God is going away as he experience these traumatic experiences, but for him, these were only temporary. Traumatic experience can change someone’s life and their character, in horrible

The holocaust unleashed unparalleled cruelty and suffering to a great number of people; Elie Wiesel survived these hardships, but his innocence was shattered. For this reason, he wrote Night to share his personal memories of his time spent in the concentration camps and details the transformation of his faith and understanding of God. Each person Elie writes about attempts to reconcile their agony with their faith, albeit many fail or have their faith transformed. In this paper, I will describe how Wiesel’s understanding of God transforms as he experiences tragedy and how the various prisoners come to terms with their faith.

People’s experience shapes their identity and their outlook on life. Traumatic events can cause mental illnesses such as PTSD or depression, and negatively affects people’s view of the world; however, survivors felt that it’s their moral obligation to educate people so their experiences will become meaningful. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel and other survivor stories, traumatic events dehumanized people and made them question their faith.

“If you get an infection, you get a fever; the fever is your body dealing with the infection. If you get traumatized, your mind and your brain have a reaction to that trauma” (Sebastian Junger). In Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer is a fourteen old boy living in Sighet, a small Jewish town. As the horrific events of World War II unfold, Eliezer is thrown into unknown situations that he must adapt to. Throughout the Holocaust, Eliezer endures many alterations in the associations with himself, his father, and god, demonstrating that if one experiences great trauma, one’s relationships with oneself and others may be modified.

In literature as in life people experience tragedy and suffering. Survivors of the Holocaust can relate to this in more ways than one. In the memoir, “Night”, by Elie Wiesel, it shows how humans can be cruel and kind. During the memoir, it also shows how courage and hope assist survival. Throughout the memoir, there are situations of dehumanization, cruelty, and suffering. This affects people in a such a way that causes intense diseases that they live with for the rest of their life. In contrast, kindness and compassion can positively affect people in their lives even while suffering through the worst of times. In the memoir, many people are faced with different challenges showing how their courage and faith can help them endure the toughest

“It is necessary to resist the tendency of recent Holocaust scholarships to universalize or collectivize Holocaust testimony, and instead revive the particular by uncovering the multiple layers within testimony.” (1) Zoe Waxman’s 2006 monograph Writing the Holocaust: Identity, Testimony, Representation sets out to prove that while the Holocaust has been universalized as one event, historians must explore the social and historical context of the many individual narratives of Holocaust witnesses in order to understand the diversity of experiences. Waxman states “three theses emerge during the course of the present study” (1) and sets out to demonstrate that Holocaust testimonies are historical, to prove that the testimony is mediated by its own history, and that testimonies confirm to the heterogeneity of Holocaust experiences.

Within the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author does an exceptional job of allowing the reader to feel empathy. His record of the personal traumas that he faced during his retainment at Holocaust Concentration camps is detailed, raw, and emotional. Elie succeeds in including serious and relevant topics during the telling of his story. One of the more prominent topics that his story focuses on is his treatment as The Other during the Holocaust, and how that changed his views on religion. His story not only allows the reader to view the different ways that one can be treated as the other, but he also lets the reader see how that changes a person in more ways than one can imagine. Treating one person differently can change how they see themselves and how they see others, but that is not all. Elie allows the readers to see how treatment as The Other can change someone physically, mentally, and it can change how someone views the world and what it holds. The treatment that the Jewish community endured

Traumatic events are often used to show moral dilemmas in society. One such example made by Ray Comfort’s was the dilemma of comparing the horrors of the Holocaust to the current abortion epidemic. Comfort employs the rhetorical appeals to draw out a response from his interviewees, parallels their logic to biblical principles, and ultimately asks them to make a decision on where they stand not only on the issue of abortion, but also in response to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

The true meaning of resilience is shown many times in the book Unbroken. Having strong problem-solving skills is what it took Louie and Phil to survive the troubles of beings trapped at sea. The two and Mac faced many challenges and all of them dealt with it differently. They supported each other by communicating and sharing all the food.

Traumatic experiences that affect people emotionally can cause them to change their perspective about their previous beliefs. This is shown through Elie’s decrease in faith towards himself, his father, and God. In each of these three circumstances, Elie’s emotions are affected heavily. In turn, this influences his perspective about the future. When Elie stops believing in himself, he stops seeing a future in which he lives. When Elie loses faith in his father, he fails to see a situation in which they both come out alive. Finally, when Elie loses faith in his god, he neglects one of the most important components of his life. This caused him to feel alone. Oftentimes, people can become so directly affected from a traumatic event that they witness

The concept of faith and suffering in the Hebrew Bible has filled worshippers with fraught throughout the ages of its existence. The crux of the matter is that there is no definition of what exactly these things are and what they mean, leading to many different theories to emerge on the concept of whether suffering is necessary for faith in God. This has historically caused strife between many populations of worshippers, and continues to be a point of bitter disagreement between people. Wildly contradicting itself between various books, the Hebrew Bible is at best ambiguous in many of these concepts, but when analyzing small passages, certain themes can be argued for with much more strength. In the Book of Job, loyalty to God is questioned, and ultimately the theme of free will in faith is addressed through the pain and suffering of its characters.