Jewish Faith During The Holocaust Essay

Wiesel’s faith changes from being a strong believer in faith before the war to losing faith while during the war, he goes on to talk about him losing faith by saying “Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.” (Pg.63). This quote goes on to demonstrate the loss of faith by Wiesel when being tortured by the Germans with the rest of the millions of Jews. Wiesel also loses faith when he says “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes .”(Pg. 34) When Wiesel say this it implicates that his faith is being lost, and also he feels that his faith is basically being robbed from him by the German Nazis party. This fully show that he had lost faith but this shows what harshness and cruelty can do to a

“I have not lost faith in God [despite] moments of anger and protest; sometimes I have been closer to him for that reason.” Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel explains the struggle of his changing beliefs in God during the Holocaust in his memoir Night. In Night, Elie Wiesel, a religious boy, is taken to several concentration camps along with other Jews, and separated from everyone in his family except for his father. He and his father live dangerous lives in the concentration camps, from being beaten, watching other prisoners die, and being close to death, until eventually Elie’s father dies and the camp is liberated. As Elie Wiesel’s time in the Holocaust lengthens, his devoutness in God begins to diminish.

Elie Wiesel’s renowned autobiography, Night, describes the numerous atrocities faced by concentration camp inmates during the holocaust. He explains that prisoners whom were not immediately murdered were subject to severe physical and psychological brutalities, all of which left lasting trauma. Like many others in these circumstances, Wiesel found it difficult to hold onto his Jewish faith when such cruelty surrounded him, going as far to question God’s very existence. These ideas are found in the excerpt: “Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘Where is God now?’And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows,’” (Night, pg. 65). This is Wiesel’s account of one of his most horrifying experiences

Faith is like a little seed; if you think about the positive aspects of a situation, then it will grow, like a seed grows when you water it. However, if the seed does not receive water anymore, it will die, which serves as a parallel to the horrors and antagonism of the concentration camps that killed Elie’s faith. After the analysis of the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the reader can visualize the horrors and slaughter of millions of innocent people that occurred in concentration camps. Throughout the book, Wiesel explains how his faith in God was tested, as he was forced to leave his home, separated from his family, and observed the death all around him; he even witnessed children being thrown into huge ditches of fire alive. Elie felt abandoned, betrayed, and deceived by the God that he knew who was a loving and giving God. It was then he started to doubt His existence. Elie tried to hold on to his faith, but the childhood innocence had disappeared from within him, and he lost his faith in God completely.

Prisoners of the Holocaust spoke not only of religious faith disintegrating, but also how their faith in humanity depleted. Wiesel recounts how one prisoner said, “I’ve got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He’s the only one who’s kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people” (77). The only person that the prisoners can put any of their trust into is the one who is slowly killing them. Another instance of loss of faith in humanity is when Wiesel witnesses the son of a rabbi he knew run away from his father. The son tries to escape his dying father so that he no longer has to take care of him and can selfishly live on. After watching this Wiesel finds himself praying to a god he no longer believes in, “My God, Lord of the Universe, give me the strength to never do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done” (87). No matter how tough it is to go on, Wiesel will not give up. He will continue to live through the miserable conditions of the Holocaust just so that he does not give up on his father, the only person he has faith left

People often begin to lose faith in God because of the results they faced from their life experiences. Some face things that seem cruel and unbearable while others are “confronted with the information presented from another viewpoint that rejects God” (Gospel Billboards). Elie was told by his father to never lose his faith in God, it would help him get through tough times and keep him strong. The faith is the only strong force that helped Elie Wiesel get through the Holocaust. Through experiences that involve cruel and unbearable moments, people start questioning whether God has the answers to life’s problems. This results in faith beginning to weaken, people stop communicating with God, which makes it easier for one’s faith to diminish. We encounter Elie questioning and refusing God, but also see his contradictory behavior he exhibits to praise. However, throughout the book, Eliezer witnesses and experiences things that leads him to lose his faith in his religion. The longer he stays in the concentration camps, the more he experiences and sees cruelty and suffering. Eliezer believes that people who pray to a God who allows their families to suffer and die are more stronger and forgiving to God. Elie was angry at God, he thought God didn’t deserve his praises or honors because he expected God to come save him but he never did. He observes people die and others around him slowly lose hope, starve, Elie ceases to believe that God could exist at all now. “Where He is? This

The greatest change to Elie Wiesel’s identity was his loss of faith in God. Before he and his family were moved to the camps, Wiesel was a religious little boy who cried after praying at night (2). When the Hungarian police come to force the Jews to move to the ghettos, they pulled Elie from his prayers (13). Even on his way to Auschwitz, stuffed inside the cattle car with other terrified Jews, Wiesel gave thanks to God when told he would be assigned to labor camps (24). After a few days in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel heard about the crematory and the fact that the Nazis were killing the sick, weak, and young. In his first night in the camp, Wiesel experienced his first crisis of faith: Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. …Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust (32).

Thesis Statement: The hardships that Elie Wiesel faced in the concentration camps lead him to lose faith, until after when realizing it was crucial to keep faith in God despite the horrendous events of the Holocaust.

Like the progressive decline of concerned thinking, is the similar value of religious faith, and how it declined as well. Being in an area where one is subject to constant torture, can lead to the one’s with the strongest faith, to the lose it all together. Elie Wiesel was one of those people. Before being thrown in the ghetto and led to the concentration camp, living by his faith was a part of his life; it was natural for him. Being questioned about it--and questioning himself--was a rare and troubling occurrence. He explains here, “‘Why do you pray?’ he asked after a moment. Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Wiesel 4). Never being able to imagine his life without his religion, caused him to view it as

In his memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel writes of his struggles for survival in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. He devotes a lot of his writing to a discussion of his experience in the loss of faith in God. He does this because he wants readers to realize how fragile one's belief can be. In the book, Elie starts off religious but loses his trust in God at the camp. He loses his trust but still prays to God when he has nothing to rely on. When God does nothing for him, he again stops believing in Him.

The holocaust was a terrible period of punishment and abuse for many who were discriminated against, especially the jews. One of these jews was Elie Wiesel. He is the author of the book Night a autobiography on his life as a Jew in the Holocaust. Throughout the book Elie displayed many traits. Elie’s traits include loyalty, determination, and religiousness. The characterization of Elie the protagonist and the other characters plays a role in creating and supporting a theme in the novel Night. From reading the novel we can tell that Elie Wiesel's night shows that the holocaust was a very difficult time for jews and that it made them lose faith in god.

In the camps, Elie’s faith was not shaken immediately even though he was quickly exposed to many atrocities. People around him took the evil as a punishment for some unknown crime the Jewish people had committed before God. In the face of all the suffering, Elie noted a feeling of guilt for those in his camps because of how they did not protest and fight back as much as he believed they could have. Others that did not feel as guilty believed that God had a good reason for punishing the Jews. They thought it must be a test, “God is testing us. He wants to find out whether we can dominate our base instincts and kill the Satan within us. We have no right to despair. And if he punishes us relentlessly, it 's a sign that he loves us all the more” (Wiesel, 42). The faith of the Jewish people helped to delay the revolution that might have erupted in the camps. The younger people felt it would be better to die fighting than to go like lambs to the slaughter. They had knives and a strong will. But their elders reminded them, “ ‘You must never lose faith, even when the sword hangs over your head. That 's the teaching of our sages . . .’ ” (Wiesel, 29). The younger people were willing to respect the faith of the elders as long as the elders were willing to accept God 's

The holocaust had a major effect on Judaism as a whole. This conflict between tragedy and faith is not new. Jewish history shows us that the jewish people have undergone the most terrible persecutions and genocide at the hands of many oppressors. Whether it be about the pogroms, crusades, destruction of the Temples, the jewish people have been at the brunt of the most terrible atrocities, and yet this does not shake their faith,Anti-Semitism was nothing new. This became even more evident with the unmasking of the holocaust.The philosophical question of “Shall the Judge of the earth not do justice?” applies just as much to the seemingly useless suffering of an individual as to that of six million individuals. If it could be dealt with on an individual basis before the Holocaust, why couldn 't it be dealt with in the same way afterwards? The difference is one of quantity, but the quality of the question remains the same.

People tend to go silent when terrible acts occur because they believe that someone else will speak up. During the Holocaust, people were aware what was happening to an extent. Some countries were welcoming in only a certain amount of refugees but were still willing to help. People outside of the concentration camps seemed to be silent on what was happening and did not take a stance against it. When there is a genocide of any kind, we as people should step in to help those who are in need. Just because it may not be your exact problem, it does not mean we lose sympathy and turn the other way.

Everyone or body has faith in themselves,but when hard time comes you pray to god and ask for something that you want to happen,but if nothing happens then what happens to your feeling or faith,you might feel that the god is betraying you,or gods aren't real.In the story Night by Elie Wiesel(September 30, 1928-July 2, 2016) a Auschwitz survivor tells his story about the experience that he had in Auschwitz and the horrible griefs he seen and been through. Faith is not the only reason that pulls people back, it the huge big hopes. The Jews still have hopes and faith when they are still on the train and camp and the hard labor they do and the faith they have in themselve how work is going free them free. This is how much faith/hope does the people that