Life In A Concentration Camp Analysis

south Poland, was one of the camps that Elie imprisoned in. Even with all the death around him, Elie still managed to survive. Years later after his liberation, Eliezer would eventually write a book about his experiences in the camps. The book, titled Night, shows the real account of Elie while he stayed in concentration camps during World War Two. Eliezer told of the horrific acts that the prisoners of Auschwitz suffered, including how he managed to survive. I will be arguing that Elie’s father helped increase his chances of survival more than he decreased them. I will mainly focus on the fact that Elie’s reason for living was to stay with his father, also time where Elie’s father kept him away from danger, and finally giving him advice to survive.

Many wars of the 20th Century were caused by leaders aiming to create a so-called Master Race. As a result many millions of soldiers and civilians were killed in conflict. Adolf Hitler, the German Fuehrer, decided that one group of people in particular needed to be eradicated: The Jew. He set up concentration camps and tried to round up all of Europe’s Jews to create “the final solution”. The Jews were either forced to work slave labor, or face extermination if they were too week or unwilling. One survivor of this Holocaust, Viktor Frankl, wrote a work of psychology, Man’s Search For Meaning, that described the horrific conditions of camp life. Frankl explains that

As the novel continues, the previous lack of affinity between Elie and his father later transforms into a type of mutual dependence. After being unwillingly planted into the concentration camps, everyone quickly learns that that type of environment required an “every man for himself” mentality in order to increase their chance for survival. Desperate to cling to their lives, the men readily adopted that way of thought, however, Elie and his father do the opposite as their situation causes them to rely more on each other than ever before. For this reason, after going through selection, Elie, “with all [his] strength.. ran toward Block 36; midway, [he] met his father,” and when they both discovered that both had passed, “[they] were able to breathe

In the beginning of the book, before experiencing life threatening difficulties, Elie was much more determined to stay with his family (in order to survive). Eliezer thought that his father was what kept him going and gave him strength, he was certain that the right thing to do was to stay with his dad. In chapter 3 Wiesel states, “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone” (30). In these sentences, Elie explains that he and his father needed to stay together. This quote also shows what Elie’s emotions were; he was scared to suffer through the concentration camp alone. Elie also shows his need for family when he says, “Franek, the foreman, assigned me to a corner... ‘Please, sir ... I’d like to be near

Several SS men rushed to find me, creating such confusion that a number of people were some my father and I. Still, there were some gunshots and some dead” (Wiesel 96). Because Elie ran after his father, some people were shot and dead, that could have been him, but Elie did not care. As long as he stayed with his father, he was okay. Even though his father was getting weak, Elie never left his side, even if it meant putting his own life in danger. Most people in the camp did abandon their fathers, however, and would even beat their own fathers to death for a few crumbs. Elie was the different one in this case, he was one of the only people that did not abandon his father and did not just think of himself the whole time. His father and him relied on each other in the camp and because of that they were both able to be so resilient depsite the terrible conditions thy faced. Without his father by his side, Elie did not feel alive. For example, after Elie’s father

In the quote “I was angry with him for not knowing how to avoid [it]. That is what concentration camp life made of me.” a rare characteristic of Elie is presented because he never gets mad at his dad in fact he refuses to let his dad die at many points in the memoir such as the part when they were being transported from one camp to another and starvation was claiming many lives in the cattle car and they were being thrown out of the car and when the men approached Elie’s father “And I started to hit him harder and harder. At last, my father half opened his eyes. They were glassy. He was breathing faintly.”. As Elie stays at the camp his identity, his past life is rewritten, and his thoughts are filled with all the things that could go wrong within in the camp including the fact that he might be shot for no reason at any moment. These thoughts caused Elie’s patience to shorten and he had thought of things that made him curious as to what the source of such crazy thought was but he still accepted that they were

Elie's father was not just a wise leader to him and his family, but to the community as well. In Auschwitz, he had many prisoners come to him and gave advice to Elie. However when the father was in Buna, he was picked on, ridiculed and beaten because he could not march in step. The torment and pain he had to bear brought him an immense measure of stress. As a result to this stress, once they reached Buchenwald, his father was pushed to the limit of his emotional limitation.

Elie’s father becomes very ill and weak, and is diagnosed with dysentery. Elie tries his very best to help his father. No matter how many times Elie explains to his father that they would return home soon, “I knew that I was no longer arguing with him but with Death itself, with Death that he had already chosen” (Wiesel 105). His father has grown so weak that he has lost hope. Elie feels a sense of helplessness because he is not able to do anything for his father. His father’s illness makes him very fragile and vulnerable, and unable to do anything. Elie tries his very best to fulfill all his wishes, but he struggles to do so. Although Elie is aware of the fact that his father is going to die soon, he tries his best to give him as much as hope as he possibly can.When he moves on with the mob and remembers that his father was with him, “a thought crept into my mind: if only I didn’t find him! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my survival…Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever” (Wiesel 106). Elie knows that his father is a threat to his survival because he is sick and can no longer do anything. However, Elie is guilty of even thinking this about his father. The Blockälteste also advises Elie that he needs to move on without his dad. He tells him that in concentration camp, there is no such thing as a father, and

People of the concentration camp never felt love and affection from anyone at the camps. When people got to the camp they were instantly separated from their families. On page 29 of the book “Night” an SS officer says, “An SS came toward us wielding a club. He commanded: ‘Men to the left Women to the right!” After the moment that Elie was separated from his mom and his sisters he never seen them again. He never got the love and affection from his mom. Elie was so deprived of love and affection he didn’t even care about his dad anymore. “My father's presence was the only thing that stopped

Elie and his father encounter several violent situations throughout their time at the concentration camps. On the train, Elie’s father had fallen into a deep sleep and the SS officers were looking to get rid of any dead. Elie recalls then “I woke from my apathy only when two men approached my father. I threw myself on his body. He was cold. I slapped him. I rubbed his hands, crying” (Wiesel 99). Elie’s affection and need for his father grows and he knows it is his job to protect his father. Elie sticks up for his father and is concerned for his health. Once again, Fine adds, “Eliezer and his father decide to watch over each other: they exchange vows of protection, which bind them together in revolt against death” (56). As the father and son continue on, they build an even stronger tie because they have no one left but each other. They rely on one another to prevent death. In conclusion, as their journey is coming to an end, Elie tries to keep his father alive, knowing that it is the only thing that will keep himself

At first,Elie describes his father as emotionless and states that he is more interested in others well-being rather than of his own family.However,as they are moved into the ghettos and ultimately the concentration camps he begins to see the more caring side of him.Yet it is only at the camps that when things keep getting worse that we can see how much Elie cared about his father.When his father was weak

Elie is young and belongs to a family that is Jewish. They are part of a Jewish community where the father is highly respected within the Jewish community and they receive a lot of respect from others. As the story progresses, Elie and his family along with the Jewish community end up being transported harshly to a concentration camp where they are abused and treated more inhumanly than imaginable. Each family is torn apart and men and women go their separate ways, children are taken away from parents, and crematoriums become a normal thing. In the beginning of the book, Elie talks about how him and his father are not extremely close, but as the story continues, Elie and his father learn to rely on each other.

Nestled into the serene Polish countryside, you can find the small town of Oświęcim. No one would never expect that short drive out of town would bring you face to face with the aging remnants of the most horrific, comprehensive act of human evil committed in the duration that our species has existed in civilization – Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp. This camp was the crown jewel of a depraved, sickening system designed to extinguish and erase entire ethnic and religious group from existence and allow the killers to wash their hands of these ‘undesirables’ - the Jews, the Gypsies, the Poles, the disabled, and anyone else who failed to complement Hitler’s National Socialist Party’s twisted fantasy of a ‘racially pure’ state. Here is where

Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and his sudden control over Germany sparked a new age of reform within the new “Nazi-state” (Hunt 848). As Nazism became a major aspect of everyday life in Germany, Hitler plotted against his enemies and those he blamed for Germany’s defeat in World War I: the Jewish race. In his biography, Mein Kampf, Hitler discusses the artistic, social, and technological superiority of Germany (“Aryans”), why he believes the Aryans are the ultimate dominant human race, and he makes many anti-Semitic remarks against the Jews. (Lualdi 224). In 1935, the “Nuremberg Laws” were enacted to deny Jewish Germans of their citizenship; this ultimately led Hitler to carry out his “Final Solution,” in which he hoped to fully

We discussed about the life of prisoners of concentration camp and the psychology of the prisoners. The panel discussion helped me understand the terrifying and horrific hardships the prisoners went through. The topics like hierarchy in concentration camps, prisoners’ mentality, and dehumanization surprised me as I never knew the cruelty in the camps. The levels of commanders explained why the guards were harsh to the prisoners. The argument of guards were not completely knowing what they were doing was a put forward in the discussion. The prisoners’ mentality to help others has decreased due to the torture given by Nazis. I was stunned by the daily schedule the prisoners were following as I couldn’t imagine to be living with that schedule. The atrocities in the lineup faced by the prisoners proved the value Nazis had on Jews and other prisoners. The reality hit hard of how harsh they were actually treated.