How Night by Elie Wiesel Helped People Connect to the Horrors of the Holocaust

Prompt: Analyze how Wiesel's character changed throughout the novel, especially in regard to the Jewish religion and towards God as a result of his experiences during the Holocaust. How does Wiesel’s transformation reveal the author’s intended theme about the Holocaust?

When the Jews were marching to the burners, many of them began to recite the prayer of the dead, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (33). This is important because this is when Elie question his faith with God, and he loses his spiritual innocence and begins to experience trials that God placed in front of him.

Night is a first-hand account of life for Elie Wiesel as a young Jewish teenage boy living in Hungary and eventually sent to Auschwitz with his family. The moment his family exits the cattle car the horror of Auschwitz sets in. His mother and sisters become separated from him and his father immediately, their fate sealed. Elie stays with his father and right away a stranger is giving them tips on how to survive and stay together. Immediately told to lie about their ages, making Elie a little older, and his father a little younger. This lie may have been the only chance they had to stay together, so they follow the stranger’s advice and pass by the first peril and housed together.

In the speech, Elie lectured on the effects of indifference. He talked about how indiferente is dangerous because it blurs the line between good and bad. The reason the speech was not as powerful is because it has no storyline. As a reader we gain certain qualities from hearing the testimonys of others. The speech has facts from different points in history but there is no series of events. On the other hand, the book was full of hardship and resilience. Through the memoir, the reader can connect with a Elie's emotions of hopelessness, loss of faith and anger but also can be strengthened and learn to be tolerant thought his survival. Elie was angry at the God, for not being present and not having compassion on his people, “ Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would I blessed him? Every fiber in me rebelled” (67). Everyone has experienced anger because of something that goes wrong in their life and can relate to Elie when he was angry. The reader can also learn to be tolerant to things we dislike, instead of seeking vengeance as Elie was towards the SS men, “And even when we were no longer hungry, not one of us thought of revenge” (115). Elie had been through so much yet he didn't seek vengeance. Although he hadn't forgiven the SS men, he didn't wish harm to them, and that takes a lot of strength. We can learn from this because we need to just let things go

The one person in Elie’s life that means everything to him is his father. During his time in the concentration camps, Elie’s bond with his father

At the beginning of the novel, when the Jews first arrive at the camps, all they have left is their family, so they cling to them. During one of the work periods, Elie comes across two brothers, “Yass and Tibi, two brothers… whose parents had been exterminated… they lived for each other, body and soul” (Wiesel 50). This relationship between the two siblings shows, a bond that has been strengthened by loss. Elie includes this small tidbit about them to show that the Jews still have some hope and compassion still in them. Once news of evacuation hits the camp, Elie’s only thought is of his father, “I was not thinking about death but not wanting to be seperated from my father” (Wiesel 82). This shows the personal level of how the Holocaust affected the families in it. It shows that because family was the only thing that they had left, that was all that they could think about. The Jews lose everything when the arrive at the camp so they cling to what they have, their family.

This book interested me because it is a great example of what so many people went through in concentration camps throughout Europe in World War II. So many books have been written about personal accounts of war hardships suffered by the Jews but so few capture the true problems faced by prisoners. The impossible decision between survival and family was a difficult one faced by many during this time. Elie had an unfaltering will to live when his father was alive with him but once his father died the reason for living disappeared. But he once was faced with the decision of helping to keep his father alive or let him die and have an extra ration of food. How can one be stuck with a decision like this and not choose survival? Only true unselfishness can cause you to help someone

In the book of Elie he writes about his experience during the Holocaust as a Jew. How the horrible images still haunt him. Can you imagine seeing people, including your loved ones, being tortured and humiliated just because they found it entertaining and thought was right? Well in Elie's story he tells us about all the forms they were treated like crap.

Night is an non fiction, dramatic book that tells the horrors of the nazi death camps all around Europe. The book is an autobiographical account of what happened, so the main character is the author. The author is Elie Wiesel who was only 14 year old when Nazi Germany came through his town of Sighet, Transylvania. This is story is set between the years of 1944 and 1945. Elie and his family of 4 are optimistic when Germany begins to take power. Germany invades Hungary, then arrives in Elie’s town. The Nazi’s begin to take over the Jews by limiting their freedom. Jews are eventually deported. The Jewish people are crowded into wagons where they are shipped to Auschwitz. He is separated from his mother and sister. Over the course of the book,

Elie Wiesel’s book “Night” shows the life of a father and son going through the concentration camp of World War II. Their life long journey begins from when they are taken from their home in Sighet, they experience harsh and inhuman conditions in the camps. These conditions cause Elie and his father’s relationship to change. During their time there, Elie and his father experience a reversal in roles.

There is a Jewish tradition, honored by the survivors of the Holocaust, to respect the memory of the dead by letting them rest in silence. However, to not talk about the sickening events of the Holocaust is disrespectful to the millions of Jewish people who fell victim to the Nazi camps. As a bearing witness to the Holocaust, Weisel gives his testimony about the crimes he has seen. These statements will bring remembrance for those who died and expose the perpetrators. Perhaps most importantly, it preserves for future generations the memory of what happened, so that it will never happen again. Night did not analyze the whole aspect of the Holocaust, but instead it focused on the experiences of a single

Everyone knows about the holocaust, but very few people truly understand the damages done and the extent of it. Since a detailed, first person account of the holocaust will teach us about history, Night is the most powerful book on the holocaust. It is the most important book because of its gresome detail, how the holocast got started, and how it shows the complete and total breakdown of a human thorugh the years.

Man loves to kill. In response to the question asked, man will continue to commit such atrocities as a genocide. Man will never learn from past mistakes or all of a sudden stop mass killings or genocides. Humans have always killed and they will continue to do it. Humans will not all of a sudden be pacifists and stop killing. This has happened with the Rwandan genocide and with the Holocaust in Night by Elie Wiesel. Man will not stop committing such atrocities and have a brighter future and these are only a few reasons why.

It is a tragedy that the terror and destruction of the Holocaust could have been avoided if the warnings were taken seriously. In Night, by Elie Wiesel, Moshe the Beetle tries to inform the community of his experience, but they do not adhere to his warnings. Similarly, my great-grandmother also sailed across the Atlantic, to warn her relatives. She informed them of the possible danger, but they too did not listen. Likewise, Jan Karski also saw the danger and tried to warn the allied leaders of the upcoming threat. In all three stories, warnings were given and then rejected. This essay will discuss responses to the Holocaust, by examining warnings regarding community members, family members, and Righteous Amongst the Nations. From the very beginning of Hitler’s rise to power, his ultimate goal, was evident in Mein Kampf and threats against Jews should always be taken seriously.

The Holocaust is over and has been for about sixty years, so why are we still talking about it? Why is it still relevant in our world today? The world should have learned from its mistakes, but the sad part is that we did not. No, Hitler is no longer killing millions of innocent men, women, and children, but we are still just still just as cruel only in different ways. Night is Elie Wiesel’s factual account of his experiences in the holocaust. He brings us to a world in which not many people want to go. He tells us the true story of what really happened in Nazi concentration camps. Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor chooses to tell his story and begins to teach an entire generation the dangers of ignorance and hatred.