The jewish Holocaust contained many things that people found were against “humanity”. Many people associate someone losing their humanity with someone killing another person or doing something bad. But there is more to that. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel there are many examples of people losing their humanity. I think that there are certain ways one can lose their humanity. If they stop contributing to society and do not accept any humans or only care about basic needs like food and water then they have lost their humanity. But just because something is lost does not mean it can be can’t be found again. That is why I think if one comes to their senses, accepts their mistakes and learns to think beyond food and water they can gain …show more content…
The only one who he cared for the most was his father. But once he died Elie felt a sigh of relief and almost felt free that his old washed up father was finally dead. “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!” (pg.112) Elie tried to feel sad for his fathers death but nothing really came out. He simply did not have any tears left and on the inside felt relieved. He probably only felt sad once he got out of the camps and made a recovery (or got his “humanity” back). He only cared about his survival and now that his dad was dead he could finally not have to watch over him. Elie only cares about himself and this causes him to lose his faith in others. Before this happens Elie ponders another idea about why maybe he should just leave his father. “A terrible thought crossed my mind: What if he had wanted to be rid of his father? He had felt his father growing weaker and, believing that the end was near, had thought by this separation to free himself of a burden that could diminish his own chance for survival” (pg.91) A person who still had their humanity would not think about this because they would not think that people would want to do this to there own family. Elie thought about perhaps doing this to his father. He …show more content…
But that does not make us human. A pig also needs water and food. So does a duck or cow or basically any other living thing. Food and water does not make us unique. A pig oinks. A duck quacks. Flowers pollinate. These are things that set them apart from each other. If a human only cares about basic needs it makes them not unique and not very human at all. As the book progresses Elie does only care about these things and in the end loses his humanity. This is first shown when someone tells Ellie that it is everyone for himself in the camp and he should not care about his dying father. “Yet at the same time 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 own survival, to take care only of myself” (pg.106) Elie starts to get sick fast of taking care of his father. Now he only starts to care about himself and what he should do. Elie does not care about his father's health or where he is or even if he loves his father. He only cares about taking care of himself and making sure he can survive in the camps. So maybe after his father passes he starts to regain his humanity? No. Even when he is liberated he does not care about revenge. Only basic things like food and shelter. “Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. That's all we thought about. No thought of revenge, or of
One of the conflicts that he has with his dad is in the beginning of the book when he feels that his dad doesn’t pay enough attention to him. “My father was occupied with his business and the doings in the community” (Wiesel 18). He feels that his father cares more about other people in the community more than he care about him. This made Elie feel melancholy and isolated.
While his father is dying in his bed, Elie decides to give him his own ration of bread of soup. However, after doing this a man in the camp says, “I’ll give you a sound piece of advice--don’t give your ration of bread and soup to your old father. There’s nothing you can do for him. And you’re killing yourself.” (pg. 115) . At this point in the book Elie himself realised that by helping and staying with his family made him go through much more hassle than what was necessary. After his dad passed Elie thought, “I might perhaps have found something like--free at last!” (pg. 116). He gathered that his father was keeping him from making the most of plight
The thoughts of condemnation and lack of self-preservation wouldn’t have ravished his mind. Page eighty-six later reveals how Elie “soon forgot him” and became more selfish by “think{ing} of {himself} again. ”Throughout much of the book, Elie writes on his selflessness towards protecting and caring for his father, but after facing so much he grows more and more selfish. This quote shows the insensitive nature that Elie developed through his time spent in the concentration camps. Lastly, Elie continually confesses his personal conflict with emotional dormancy through his
In a couple parts of the story Elie’s dad in many ways was jeopardizing Elie’s well being. For instance, when his father was sick. “Instead of him taking the extra bread he had gotten he gave it to his dad” There was no point because his father was gonna die either way so he basically wasted it. Another example of why family isn’t always the best thing to have during a crisis. Is when the “rabbi's son left him when they were forced to run away from the Americans/ Russians”. He did this because he thought his father was dragging him down so he slipped away and left him to ultimately die alone. Which still doesn’t justify what he did, but i’m sure he did it to save his own life because his father was slowing him down. Another example would be when they were on the train the second time and a SS officer threw a piece of bread into the cart just to watch the men fight over it. While they were fighting Elie describes a point where “a man actually beats his own father for a piece of bread”(Wiesel Pg.105). These are just two of many instances throughout the
On page 91, he sees that the Rabbi’s son starts to abandon his father to empty himself of that burden. Elie prays that he doesn’t become selfish enough to turn against his father. “Oh God, Master of the
“Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even these crematories” (Wiesel 30).
When Elie and his father first entered the camps, his father was struck and Elie did nothing to help his father: "What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails in this criminal's flesh" (39). This shows that, although Elie did not share a close relationship with his father, he still feels that he should stand up for his fahter for the fact that they are father and son. Elie is very violent in that he would have "dug his nails in the criminals' flesh." Evidently, Elie is furious towards the offender. Unfortunately, Elie does not do anything when his father is struck because he does not want to draw attention to himself. Nevertheless, the bond between Elie and his father does strengthen: "And what if he were dead, as well? He was not moving. Suddenly the evidence overwhelmed me: there is no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight" (98-99). Elie reveals that he truly depends on his father for survival. Because he believes his father is no longer alive, he loses all hope for surviavl. Although Elie expresses anger towards his father from time to time because he is being a burden, he still feels that his survival is meaningless without his father. The strong bond that the two developed once they entered the concentration camps proves that nothing can come between them so easily.
Night by Elie Wiesel describes his experiences as a Jew in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Wiesel and other Jews survived, but many others did not. One of the key components to the Jews’ survival was hope.
In the story Elie was whipped savagely by the Kapo, and all he can think about is his father. Later in the new camp Elie's father is giving up on life and Elie tries to make him move. There is an allied air raid and for the first time Elie leave his father.(wiesel pg. 106) This proves he finally gave up on his father. He started off in the story really caring about his father sacrificing his own safety just so he could stay close to him. After his father was struck ill in the new camp he gave up on him. In the story Elie wanted to keep his shoes even if that meant he would get tormented even more. This show he has a very strong will and loves things that give him a glimmer of hope. At the end when his father died he stopped caring and lost all hope in surviving the
Elie is watching over his father and fights for him to keep going until he no longer can. It’s in the emotional moments that they come together. “We had never understood one another so clearly.” (Weisel 65) They are seeking to understand each other and through having this emotional moment together where they are both vulnerable, they become closer than they had ever been. Without them fighting to keep one another alive they had multiple opportunities where they could’ve fallen into death. “We’ll look after each other.”(Wiesel 85) They say this while they sit in the cold both needing sleep but also knowing that falling into a deep sleep means death. When his father becomes ill Eliezer fights and begs for his father to not let go. “After my father’s death, nothing could touch me anymore.” After using so much of his energy and putting it into his father, fighting for him to stay alive he feels like nothing matters because the only thing that remained through everything was his
Nearing the end of their arduous journey, the mutual dependence was slowly dwindling as Elie began to have to take care of his father. One example of this is when his father was sick and in the camp infirmary and had not been fed so Elie “gave him what was left of [his] soup. But [his] heart was heavy. [He] was aware that [he] was doing it grudgingly,’ (107). Being that he did this grudgingly, the reader is shown that, to Elie, taking care of his father had become more of an unwanted task rather than a kind action coming from his heart. Elie begins to see his own father as a thorn in his side much rather than his source support. His father is no longer there as a person who will provide motivation to survive but now instead a burden. In another instance, still in the infirmary, when his father pleaded for water and the officer came to silence him, Elie states, “ I didn’t move.
In 1944, World War II was close to over, but not for everyone. Six million Jewish people had been taken from their homes and put to the most dehumanizing work in history by being transported to concentration camps to work 12+ hour shifts. With little to no food, complete segregation, and torturous treatment by sadistic guards, this time of life was a literal hell for these Jews. The SS guards stationed there were so brutal, that the prisoners felt constantly in fear for their lives. In the award winning memoir, Night, written by Elie Wiesel, he narrates his experience as a young Jewish boy during the Holocaust. At the concentration camps, they were separated and put to work, not office work, interminable amounts of forced labor, no mistakes, and if so, shot or beaten to death. The Nazis decimated the Jewish population, and in doing so, exposed Hitler’s true intentions and cruelty. Wiesel discloses the radical changes that the Jews undergo, from normal people, with family and friends, into violent, self-centered crazies who look out for no one else and must fight for
In the beginning of the book, Elie believed that he no longer had faith, though he had been a compelling believer before. He also reveals the strong relationship he had with his father, and because his father was the only sense of family he had left, he did everything he could to keep his father healthy and alive. In section three of the novel, Elie shows the first sign of loss of faith, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me… why should I sanctify his name… what was there to thank him for” (Wiesel 33). He believed that the terrible situation he was in, was to surely be blamed on God, due to the unanswered prayers that Elie received. Elie displays the great relationship he possessed with his father in section three as well, “Men to the left… women to the right… eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion... eight simple, short words… yet that was the moment when I left my mother… we were alone” (Wiesel 29). The quote demonstrates the fact that Elie’s family was literally split in half when his sister and mother went to the right and he and his father stayed left. Elie only has his father, so it makes sense for Elie to sacrifice everything for him.
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
Before Elie went to the concentration camps, he had many good character traits such as loyalty, Religious, and Impatient. For Example, on page 33, it says “If that is true then I don’t want to wait. I’ll run into the electrified barbed wire. That would be easier than a slow death in the flames” (Wiesel). During this part of the book, Elie and his dad had just arrived at Auschwitz and were being put in a line that was leading to death. Nevertheless, this shows that he is being impatient because he was facing death head on and knew that he might die so he was choosing a quick death rather than burning and slowly dying. Another trait Elie showed before the concentration camp was loyalty. For instance, on page 36, Elie stated “Please sir I’d like to be by my father” (Wiesel). In this part of the book Elie and his family were being separated at the camp and Elie lied about his age so he could stay with his dad. In contrast Elie showed loyalty to his dad by not going with his mom and sister and staying with his dad. This was a very big decision by Elie because he chose the hard way by staying with his dad even if that meant death.