Night Reflection

“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.

​ At the beginning of the story while living in Sighet, Eli has a strong belief in God and he worships him. For example, Elie befriended Moishe the Beadle who is trying to teach him everything he knows about God. Eli mentions how he and Moishe would spend hours talking about God. Eli says, "And Moishe the Beadle...spoke to me for hours on end about the Kabbalah's revelations and it's mysteries"(pg 5). This quote explains how Eli is prone to learning everything Moishe has to teach. Since he mentions hours and hours, it shows that he is willing to spend a lot of his time trying to learn as much as he can. Which should lead the reader to see how much Eli worships God.

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.

Before Elie went to Auschwitz, he possessed many positive character traits, such as being curious, responsible, and disciplined. Weitsel writes, “Together we would read over and over again the same pages of the Zohar. Not to know it by heart but to discover the very essence of divinity” (5). Studying with his tutor and mentor was something Elie loves to do. He grew up in a small town as a strict Orthodox Jew. He loves to learn and read about religion, but he longs to gain a deeper understanding of God and spent many hours with his tutor Moishe, which shows his curiosity for knowledge and discovery. Elie also shows great responsibility in these miserable and anxious times. “Go and wake the neighbors, said my father. “They must get ready…” (Weisel,14). His father asks Ellie to go warn the others in the Ghetto that they must pack their belongings and be ready to leave. Elie’s father trusts him and treats him as an adult. He is often asked to help

“Never shall I forget that smoke… Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever...Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into ashes…”(page 34). Elie Wiesel, the author of “Night”, describes his experiences in the Holocaust. Elie experiences pain and suffering throughout his time in the concentration camp, Auschwitz, and he shares how he survived. In the book “Night” the main character, Elie, is affected by the events in this book such as loss of faith, emotional connections with his father, and his self changes mentally and physically.

Night is a brutally honest memoir of much of Elie Wiesel’s childhood. When Wiesel was young he was very devoted to his Religion, asking questions and reading scripture. When the trains were loaded Wiesel no longer had the words to express his disdain. After setting foot in Auschwitz Wiesel felt abandoned by god and no longer believed God was not righteous. Rightful decision he watched children burn, men get shot, women disappear to never return. Despite all this Wiesel never truly lost his religion explaining “I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.”(45,Wiesel). As time passes faith was restored and like many Holocaust survivors Wiesel is still Jewish and was proud to tell the world about it to the day he died.

Night, by Elie Wiesel, showed the devastation of Eliezer’s childhood and illustrated the loss of innocence through the evil of others. Elie Wiesel expressed to us that one’s own faith and beliefs can be challenged through torture and ongoing suffering. The novel, Night, allowed the reader to witness the change in Eliezer from one of an innocent child who strongly adhered to his faith in God into a person who questioned not only his faith and God but of himself as well. The cruelty is shown to him while in the concentration camp forced him to wonder if there was a God and if so why would he put him and the others through such torture. Through his suffering, Eliezer’s beliefs dramatically and negatively changed his faith in God and compelled him to experience a transformative relationship with his father.

Indian civil rights leader, Mahatma Gandhi, once wrote, “Faith is not something you can grasp, it is a state to grow into.” In this quote, Gandhi explains how faith is not only a strong concept, but also an individual journey one must take. However, since faith is described as a state of change, it is necessary that one can let go of the burden of religion. In the memoir, Night, the author, Elie Wiesel, details his personal experiences with God and faith. Set during the Holocaust, Wiesel was one of millions of Jews persecuted for his faith; he was thrown into one of the deadliest concentration camps at age 15. In the beginning of the memoir, Elie Wiesel attempts to study the Kabbalah and pursue numerous religious endeavours; as the memoir continues, Elie begins to lose his religion. Although many people in the world may rely on faith and religion, Elie Wiesel presents the memoir, Night, along with its many symbols to show that even in the most dire of circumstances, faith cannot always help an individual in need.

In times of hardship and strife it can be difficult to hold onto faith and religion. So imagine being taken from home at the age of 15 and being thrown into a concentration camp immediately separated from friends and family and being forced to work around the clock in harsh conditions hardly being fed and witnessing countless deaths at every corner. Well the main character in the novel Night by Elie Wiesel had to face this exact thing and many more which made him change spiritually and faith wise over the course of the of the novel going from being completely devoted to God to hating him during his horrific time in the concentration camp which drastically changed him as a person and shaped the story as a whole regarding the fact that it's easy to lose your spirituality in times of trials and tribulations.

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

In times of distress many people turn to their faith to help guide through the situation. This book Night by Elie Wiesel is a sorrowful memoir of Elie Wiesel’s experiences in the Holocaust. Through his experiences as a teen in concentration camps with his father, Elie struggles to find his faith and will to live another day. In Night, Elie Wiesel uses Eliezer’s change in faith to demonstrate that in order to survive he needs to either have faith in god or humanity.

During the Holocaust 6 million Jews were thrown into systematic camps designed to tear them apart. There were a handful of survivors and of these Jews, one of them is Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel is a survivor of the Holocaust and shares their experiences in their novel Night. A major topic that Elie Wiesel talks of in Night is his transformation of his belief in God. Elie before the Holocaust is praying on a regular basis and takes part in Kabbalah. However, as the Nazis advance and Elie is thrown into a concentration camps he loses faith. In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel portrayed how Nazis performed acts of hatred towards the Jews that physically and spiritually ripped them apart causing Jews to question their God and eventually lose faith.

In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel talks of what he had experienced within the concentration camps in WWII. Wiesel consistently portrayed faith throughout the novel showing hope and people stray away from their faith and what they have thought and believed. Elie is a 12 year old boy who is taken to Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland where most Jewish prisoners knew if they were sent there it was a sentence to death. Elie has a lot of faith which he slowly starts to question as he endures the hardships within the camp.

Horrendous situations such as the Holocaust reveal just how much of a person’s beliefs and principles are based upon the environment one is in. If one studies such a period of inhumanity and barbarity, it becomes quite clear that the difference between a devout Jew and an Atheist is not as large as it may seem; for, the time it takes for someone to transition from one to the other is not long at all when being pushed by the enormous weight of the cruelty at that time. One such example of these monumental transformations is Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and author of the memoir Night. At the beginning of the novel, Elie Wiesel is passionate about his Jewish faith; however, the horrifying acts of cruelty he witnesses at Auschwitz cause him to lose his faith in God.

The novel Night written by Elie Wiesel portrays a real life experience of the author during World War II. In the book, he demonstrates how his experiences in the concentration camp affected him both mentally and physically. By seeing all the cruelties in the concentration camp, Elie eventually loses his faith towards the God. Elie Wiesel describes what he had seen by “Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever”(Wiesel, 34). Later in the story, Elie Wiesel understood the smoke rising the crematorium comes from innocent people, for the first time he began to question God. He was puzzled by the world and how human beings can be so cruel to each other, and the God he believed in did not do anything to stop it.