I Had The Privilege Of Attending An Event Put On By The Hillel / Jewish Student Organization

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.

In the book Escape Children of the Holocaust, author Allan Zullo highlights the struggles of three innocent Jewish children, Hanci Hollander, Halina Litman and Gideon Frieder. All three children were born in different countries affected by the Holocaust; Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. If you did not know, the Holocaust was a gruesome time in the world’s history. There were concentration camps for Jews. All because of one Austrian man, Adolf Hitler, who hated the Jews so much he did not want one Jew left standing. Consequently, he made the Nazi Germans hunt, enslave and kill the Jews.

The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden.

After witnessing the killing of a man on Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, the destruction of Jewish property and the arrest or killing of Jews throughout Germany, Michael, then 8, was stunned when his parents did nothing to help the man and made him walk away with their heads down. The reason was that Michael's parents had an important secret, they are spies for the Allies and must stay undercover.

The date is April 11, 1945. A 17 year old boy looks towards the ominous gates of the Buchenwald concentration camp after nearly two years of misery and sees his first sign of hope: an American tank standing at the entrance of the gates. This young boy was Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the gruesome events that occurred in concentration camps during WWII. Elie shares a chilling memoir about his experience in his book Night. Throughout the novel, Elie and other Jewish inmates constantly used their families as their primary motive to overcome hardships even while being challenged by tough circumstances.

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.

“For nearly 50 years I don’t and can’t speak about what has happened to me… I was silent when I was hidden and I stay silent even when I am not” (Rein Kaufman). Because the memories of her childhood were so painful, Lola did not tell anyone what had happened; not her uncle, who raised her after the holocaust, not her husband, and not her children. Lola decided to share her story in May of 1991 when she met Jane Marks, a reporter who was writing a book on hidden children. After Lola is handed the microphone at a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reception and told, “Go ahead and talk”, she tells her story once again - but this time in public. “My silence, it seems, has been fully broken” (Rein Kaufman). Since that moment, Lola has spoken many times at synagogues and schools. Lola has shown courage and trust by sharing her story, but that wasn’t all she

Born in Poland, Henia Weit was the youngest of nine children in her family. She lived in a town by the name of Sambor. Unfortunately, the town was bombarded by German soldiers shortly after Hitler started his reign of terror on the Jews. Henia’s family was forced to do laborious work in a ghetto until they were all deported to a concentration camp. Fortunately for Henia, she was able to escape and never went to the concentration camp herself. Instead, she had to survive for several years alone, with only her sister to turn to.

Over the past couple of week I have been reading the book Prisoner B-3087 which is a book about a Jewish boy named Yanek Gruener during WWII. Yanek was very young at the start of the war, around 10, and he lived in Poland his whole life in a flat apartment. He was growing up with Germans approaching him. His father always said that they would never reach them, but one day they did. The Nazis came marching in, took over the city and built a wall with gates so no one could leave. The let out all the non Jews and kept pushing more jewish families into the “Ghetto”. When the Ghetto started to fill up the Nazis would soon start killing people and taking them to the concentration camps. Yanek’s family soon started to be taken in trucks off to

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

Jackie Robinson once said, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives”. This quote was demonstrated through the relationship between Wiesel and his father in Jewish concentration camps. “Night” provides the Holocaust through the view of a Jewish teenager, Elie Wiesel. Wiesel and his father were imprisoned in labor camps following their eviction from their home. They faced many hardships such as starvation, dehydration and torture. Yet, through all of the struggle, they remained sane and pushed through the challenges, hoping to reach the end of the Holocaust together. As Wiesel put it, he was his father’s “sole support” (Wiesel 87) and his father, despite his

You would think, a young boy, sent to different camps, fighting to live, gets luckily abandoned by the surrendering Nazis and saved by the allies. But, the story is so much more. The boy is taken from everything he knows and loves and has to find a way to live. He is left with nothing and everything valuable is taken away. He is then marked as an object and treated worse than a

When Stein, a forgotten relative, approached Eliezer and his father on their eight day of living in the concentration camp, Auschwitz, he wanted information on his wife and two kids whom Eliezer's mother had corresponded with in the past. Stein and his family had been separated two years ago and he desperately wanted to know how they were doing. While Eliezer did not have any knowledge about Stein's family, caught between indecision, he decided to lie. He

Gerda was 15 when she was moved into a ghetto called the Bielsko ghetto in 1939 ,September 1. Gerda had an older brother who was 19. But that changed when young men 16 and up had to sign up for the army. Now it was just Gerda and her parents. Then german fighter planes appeared overhead, causing people to flee the city. Her family remanded in the town. In the morning, she heard intense shouting and saw Nazi’s on motorcycles shouting “Heil Hitler”. One day women and men were separated and asked to be put in lines. Gerda was in the line with her mother and a guard asked her how old she was and she said, “18”. Then she was put in a truck a shouting at her mother to ask where she was going and her mother said she didn’t know. Gerda jumped out of the truck but a SS officer caught her and said to her that she was too young to die. Then she knew that her mother was going to die. After Gerda being moved into the ghetto she was deported in 1942 to work in a factory in Bolkenhain, Silesia. Besides the of all the labor and hunger there was caring caring between the inmates. A German supervisor, Mrs. Kugler, saved Gerda’s life because when Gerda got sick and the SS men had to inspected her to see if she should continue working or die. Mrs. Kugler helped her pass the Inspection by just letting her work and then rest again. She was moved to a camp called Marzdorf and spent three years there. It

Between 1933 and 1945, 11 million people were murdered in the Holocaust, of this six million were Jews and of this, 1.1 million were children. Of the nine million Jews who lived in Europe before the Holocaust, an estimated 2/3 were murdered. Despite all these odds and statistics, Vladek Spiegelman managed to survive, and then share his story with his son, so he could share their story with the world. Another reason that Vladek Spiegelman is a good subject to write a biography on is, his personality. He seems to have to sides to him, Vladek Spiegelman before war and Vladek Spiegelman post - war. We get to see the impact and affect the Holocaust had on it’s victims, with our own eyes. Moreover, Vladek Spiegelman is an inspiration and a reminder of the potential dark side to human nature. Thus, writing a biography on Mr. Spiegelman is informative, moving and above all, inspirational.