Although a lot of people have heard of the horrors experienced by the Jews during their forced imprisonment in the concentration camps of the Nazi Germans, there are a still a lot more people who doubt that such horrible acts or abominations were ever committed against any race. Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, in his autobiography, Night, shares his experiences of life in the Nazi German concentrations camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. Wiesel, as a 13-year-old teenager who grew up in the Jewish community of Sighet, Transylvania, was a very religious young man who was ready to dedicate his life to the service of God. But as the war began and as he witnessed his family and friends being brutally maltreated and murdered by the Nazi Germans, he started to doubt the existence of a merciful, kind and loving God.
One of the major themes of Elie Wiesel’s Night is the struggle encountered by the Jewish people as they try to maintain some form of their humanity in the concentration camps. In order to accomplish such an audacious task, the Jewish people turned to God in prayer and also tried to protect as many of their family and friends as possible from ruthless and brutal death in the concentration camps. But at the same time, the Nazi Germans were also driving to degrade and strip away the humanity of the Jewish inmates by treating them as animals to be slaughtered. The Nazi Germans had many weapons and tactics at their disposal to help them strip away the humanity of
Elie Wiesel says, "I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions"(5). Questioning God is essential to building a relationship with Him. As one finds the answers to the questions they become closer to God. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie grows up questioning God and when he is put in the concentration camp he questions God in ways that test his faith. Despite having grown up so strong in his faith, Elie questions his faith as he is put through the trials and tribulations of the concentration camp.
“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”, said Elie Wiesel the author of night. Elie Wiesel is a holocaust survivor, he went through 5 different concentration camps. He was dehumanized, malnourished, and abused. He lost all his possessions, his family, and his humanity. In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, the German Army dehumanizes Elie Wiesel and the jewish prisoners by depriving them of family, food, and self esteem.
In 2006, Elie Wiesel published the memoir “Night,” which focuses on his terrifying experiences in the Nazi extermination camps during the World War ll. Elie, a sixteen-year-old Jewish boy, is projected as a dynamic character who experiences overpowering conflicts in his emotions. One of his greatest struggles is the sense helplessness that he feels when all the beliefs and rights, of an entire nation, are reduced to silence. Elie and the Jews are subjected daily to uninterrupted torture and dehumanization. During the time spent in the concentration camp, Elie is engulfed by an uninterrupted roar of pain and despair. Throughout this horrific experience, Elie’s soul perishes as he faces constant psychological abuse, inhuman living conditions, and brutal negation of his humanity.
Strong bonds built upon trust and dependability can last a lifetime, especially through strenuous moments when the integrity of a bond is the only thing that can be counted on to get through those situations. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, he writes about his life spent in the concentration camps, while explaining the experiences and struggles that he went through. However, not everything during that period was completely unbearable for Wiesel. When Wiesel arrived at the first camp, Birkenau, the fear instilled in him and the loneliness he would have felt forced him to form a stronger attachment to his father. That dependence towards his father gave Wiesel a reason to keep on living. In turn, his father was able to support Wiesel and make the experiences in the camps a bit more manageable.
Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lived changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4). This would change in the coming weeks, as Jews are segregated, sent to camps, and both physically and emotionally abused. These changes and abuse would dehumanize
Through its survivors, memories of the Holocaust live on today. During World War II, Nazi Germany was destined to exterminate all Jewish communities in occupied Europe in concentration camps. The remembrance of the Holocaust is resurrected in Elie Wiesel’s Night, where he proves to lose faith in God by evoking his feelings about the corruption of humanity.
Dialogue is often used to advance or develop the plot of a literary text. When a character speaks, the reader gains an insight into that character’s motives or intentions. This has the potential to introduce or resolve conflicts, both of which propel the plot onward. Interactions between characters can also be significant to them or character development. An example of this can be found in the book Night, by Elie Wiesel. When the prisoners are waiting to enter the showers, Elie’s father tells his son, “’Leave me… I can’t go on anymore… Have pity on me… I’ll wait here until we can go into the showers… You’ll come and get me’”(105). This example of dialogue introduces the conflict of Elie’s father becoming ill, eventually
In the memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel portrays the dehumanization of individuals and its lasting result in a loss of faith in God. Throughout the Holocaust, Jews were doggedly treated with disrespect and inhumanity. As more cruelty was bestowed upon them, the lower their flame of hope and faith became as they began turning on each other and focused on self preservation over family and friends. The flame within them never completely died, but rather stayed kindling throughout the journey until finally it stood flickering and idle at the eventual halt of this seemingly never-ending nightmare. Elie depicts the perpetuation of violence that crops up with the Jews by teaching of the loss in belief of a higher power from devout to doubt they
Nelson Mandela once said, “To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity. To impose on the people a wretched life of hunger and deprivation is to dehumanise them.” Similarly, in the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a religious Jewish boy named Eliezer Wiesel faced a dramatic change in the town of Sighet when the Nazis invaded in 1941. Over time, various Jews lost several privileges due to anti-Semitic edicts being enforced as they went on a traumatic journey through ghettos and concentration camps. When Eliezer experienced malevolence throughout the camps, he began to lose his humanity and faith as he questioned God’s prejudicial actions. Elie Wiesel conveys how the horrors of the Holocaust can strip a man of his humanity
Elie Wiesel’s book Night presents certain aspects of Jewish history, culture and practice through the story of Wiesel’s experience with his father in the concentration camps. Wiesel witnessed many horribly tragic things throughout his days in the concentration camps. It is these experiences that cause him to struggle with his faith. He grew up as a devote Jew who enjoyed studying and devoting himself to his religion.
During the Holocaust, approximately six million non-Aryans, especially Jews, perished under the rule of the Nazis. Prisoners were frequently beaten, starved, and treated as if they were animals. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, he recollects the traumatizing experiences he and his fellow prisoners
Auschwitz, Birkenau and Bechenwald are just a few names that awaken the nightmares of the Holocaust. The suffering and gruesome deaths that took place at these and other concentration camps were greater than any experienced. The Holocaust produced a void in the souls of those who survived, and Elie Wiesel was one of those people. Wiesel was one of the minority of Jews to survive the Holocaust. His family did not make it through with him, and this had lasting effects. Before the Holocaust Wiesel was one of the most devoted Jewish child. Up until the end he waited for God to intervene. When that did not follow through, he felt betrayal and began to doubt God in his mercy. In Night by Elie Wiesel, the author utilizes the motif of faith and harsh tones in order to show that human survival comes first in times of hardships.
In the memoir, Night, by Elie Wiesel displays all the tragic experiences that his family along with himself had to endure during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a mass genocide of Jews; however it was not only a genocide because for those that survived it also was the most demoralizing and dehumanizing experience for the Jewish community to undergo. Elie’s memoir captures how Jews beliefs changed from asking questions to God to questioning their belief in God and he also demonstrated the Nazis inhumane treatment towards the Jewish people.
In Elie Wiesel's novel, Night, the reader can truly see what concentration camps were like and what Jews and other prisoners had to endure. When Wiesel tells his story, the readers can only imagine the true horrors as vivid images are forced into our head allowing ones thought to race about hat else could have happened. Everyone wants to believe that all people are good, but as the reader sees throughout the novel one, cannot even trust his son as they were killing each other for bread. Wiesel questions his faith because how could God allow something like this to happen, but as the reader can see their is no such thing as perfect paradise because at any moment it could be lost. As for the Nazi's they believed what they were doing was for the
Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, and Edgar Guest, the author of See it Through, display many similarities throughout their work. Each author’s use of imagery and the tones they convey allow the reader to understand the feeling and the message they bring out throughout their pieces of writing. In the novel and the poem, both of the author’s tone is similar because they both have an empowering voice. An example of this similarity in the novel is when Eliezer was finally free from all the torture he's gone through and how he thought right after, “Our first act as free men were to throw ourselves onto the provisions, that's all we thought about. No thought of revenge, or of parents. Only of bread”. An example of this in the poem is when Edgar