Reflection On Night By Elie Wiesel

People have survived many situations throughout the years. Some of the these situations have been life threatening and some have not been that bad. These situations have left people wrenched, mortified, and distressed. Elie Wiesel in Night is innocent, desperate, and numb. Overall, Wiesel is left broken. Night was written by Elie Wiesel and the book is about his personal experience about being a victim of the Holocaust.

“I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.” (5)

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw. George Shaw’s famous quote describes that to achieve, you must change yourself. On May 1944, Elie Wiesel and his family were forced out from his home in Sighet, Romania to live in Auschwitz, Germany. He and his two older sisters survived the holocaust, Elie then wrote his experience in 1960. During the span of the book, “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the novel demonstrates that traumatic events can change a person drastically. In the beginning, Elie lived with his family in Germany, his mother, his father, and his three siblings. The Germans forced the Jews to hand over their valuables, live in ghettos and finally moving them to concentration camps, including Elie’s family. He was disunited from his mother and three siblings, but managed to stay with his father. At first when he entered the camp he was pessimistic and discouraged when he saw the townspeople crying including his father. After, Elie then learned to take care of himself and his father during tragic events, he stuck to his ambitions and values which led him to go through many obstacles , despite the limitations, and be free of the camp of Auschwitz. As he set out Eliezer was an immature and carefree 15 year old who developed into a responsible young adult.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, the author reflects on his own experience of being separated from his family and eventually his own religion. This separation was not by any means voluntary, they were forced apart during the Holocaust. Wiesel was a Jew when the invasion of Hungary occurred and the Germans ripped members of his religion away from their home in Sighet. A once peaceful community where Wiesel learned to love the Kabbalah was now home to only dust and lost memories. Most members of that Jewish community were never to return, hell greeted them with open arms as they walked through the now rusty gates of Auschwitz. In order to survive unimaginable circumstances that were enforced in these camps, a boy had to hang on to his humanity. But by no means did humanity stay with the boy, being subjected to the horror of concentration camps, Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Elie Wiesel saw first-hand how members of other communities attempt to silence opposing voices. All of the pain that Wiesel saw inspired him to keep watch and tell stories for people who wouldn’t live on to tell them for their own families. Stories are what keeps a person alive and through Eliezer’s words that he puts down many are able to get a sense of closure in knowing what occurred at these camps. One story occurred on the first train ride away from home, a lady named Madame Schächter was beaten up for crying out against imminent death, unseen by others.

Night is an account of the Holocaust and persecution of the Jewish people, written by Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel wrote, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky” (Night). Remembering the events of the Holocaust and the atrocities that occurred are a major theme of the book . The events of the Holocaust were unforgettable to Elie Wiesel and even on the first day, he saw children being burned. Throughout the book this is not the only atrocity that he saw.

After nearly two years of misery, a young boy finally saw the first ray of hope on the horizon; the Americans had finally arrived, and the Nazis were gone. In his autobiography Night, Elie Wiesel shares his experiences in Auschwitz-Birkenau, one of Hitler’s concentration camps. Wiesel was one of the minority of Jews to survive the Holocaust during World War II. His family did not make it through with him, and this had lasting effects. Wiesel’s identity changed completely during his experiences in Auschwitz; he lost his faith in God and he became indifferent to his survival and the survival of his family members. Despite these hardships, however, he ultimately became a stronger person than he was before.

In Night, by Elie Wiesel, one man tells his story of how he survived his terrible experience during the Holocaust. Wiesel takes you on a journey through his “night” of the Holocaust, and how he survived the world’s deadliest place, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Elie Wiesel will captivate you on his earth shattering journey through his endless night. Elie Wiesel’s book Night forces you to open your eyes to the real world by using; irony, diction, and repetition to prove that man does have the capability to create such a harsh reality.

It was in Auschwitz during 1944, at the time of arrival about midnight when the smell of burning flesh saturated the air. There was an unimaginable nightmare of a truck unloading small children and babies thrown into the flames. However, this is only one event in this entire tragedy of events to be remembered in order to understand how deeply literal and symbolic the book entitled Night by Elie Wiesel is. The novel brings light to the reader about what the Jews faced while in the fire, hell and night; nonetheless, the author portrays each and every day during this year as a night in hell of conflagration. "Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes." (Wiesel 20). When Wiesel arrived at the camp he counted the longest dreadful ten steps of his life; he realized that his nightmare has just become unimaginable.

“My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental.”pg.4. Elie and his father didn't have the best relationship. Elie’s father was high in his community. He didn't show his love for his family as a father would. And this brought cracks to the relationship.He was more concerned about his businesses and community than his own family.

The aim of this book review is to analyze Night, the autobiographical account of Elie Wiesel’s horrifying experiences in the German concentration camps. Wiesel recounted a traumatic time in his life with the goal of never allowing people to forget the tragedy others had to suffer through. A key theme introduced in Night is that these devastating experiences shifted the victim 's view of life. By providing a summary, critique, and the credentials of the author Elie Wiesel, this overview of Night will reveal that the heartbreaking events of the Holocaust transformed the victims outlook, causing them to have a lack of empathy and faith.

There are many important themes and overtones to the book Night, by Eliezer Wiesel. One of the major themes from the book includes the protagonist, and author of his memoire, Elie Wiesel’s ever changing relationship with God. An example of this is when Moche the Beadle asked Elie an important question that would change his life forever, as the basis of his passion and aptitude for studying the ancient texts and teachings of Judaism, “When Moche the Beadle asked Elie why he prayed, Elie couldn 't think of an answer that truly described his faith, and thought, "a strange question, why did I live, why did I breathe?" (Wiesel 14).

Let me ask you this; How would you respond if you were thrown onto a cattle car, sent to a work at a concentration camp, for possible the rest of your life, and, in the process, have your family sent to their death? Don’t forget you face all this while being starved and forced to fight for your life. That seems like a completely ridiculous question, but for millions of Jews during World War II, it was the exact situation they experienced. Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, tells the story about the cruel treatment Jewish prisoners experienced and how that turned them into savages. As you will see, Elie himself will not be able to escape this fate, but I do believe he didn’t quite reach the same level as some of the others.

Eleven million humans lost their lives during the holocaust, but there were some individuals that were lucky enough to survive through the living Hell of the reign of Hitler. It was a gruesome transition for many, and it really changed the mindset of any remaining survivors. In the book, “Night”, Elie Wiesel changed into a completely different person throughout the book.

Throughout World War II, people endured tremendous loss, leaving behind their belongings and identity in their hometowns in which they were taken from. Jews were forced out of their homes and taken to ghettos and concentration camps throughout Europe. In America, many people along the west coast of Japanese descent were sent to labor camps due to prejudice after the Pearl Harbor attack. All minorities suffered through immeasurable pain, coping through the loss of family members, friends, and their homes. Elie Wiesel tells his story of suffering during the Holocaust in his biography, Night.

I feel like the book Night lets off a very sad a depressing mood. The setting of this book is a various amount of concentration camps that Elie and his dad go to. The main central idea of Night is to explain the experiences in the Holocaust. I personally think that this book is a good book for young adults and not kids because it uses some language and it’s very descriptive.