The Holocaust By Elie Wiesel

Scottish poet, Robert Burns wrote, “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless millions mourn.” When looking back on the history of our society, many incidences that reflect this thought clearly. One that stands out to me is the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the “purification” of Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler from 1939 to 1945. There were millions of people that were cycled through the concentration camps that the Nazis built. The millions of people that were killed are just a small portion of the billions that were indirectly impacted by the horrible actions of the Nazis. I believe that Nazi Germany performed inhumane acts on the people that they put into the concentration camps, therefore indirectly affecting millions, possibly billions, of people.

In 1944-1945, Elie Wiesel was one of the few survivors to witness the lives during the Holocaust. He was only 15 years old to experience many brutal and harsh treatment between the Jews and the non-Jews. Growing up, Wiesel had faced many prejudice in the concentration camp as a prisoner by the Gestapos and other non-Jew workers. In 1960, Wiesel wanted to share his past experiences from the Holocaust by writing his memoir. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel discusses the theme of Racism. Through his use of atmosphere, tone, and foreshadowing, Wiesel is saying to reader that when one group deems themselves superior to another, they take the humanity away from the lesser groups.

Thesis- Elies strong faith before the holocaust was weaken throughout his experience in the camps because if the violence and cruelty of the guard, other prisoners, and his own psychological state.

The Holocaust changed Elie Wiesel in more ways than one. Before the Holocaust Elie was a very religious person. Wiesel and Moshe the Beadle would talk for hours about the secrets of Jewish mysticism. However, as time past and more Jews were killed Wiesel started to doubt God. Wiesel said on his first night in camp after he saw the people being burned in fire pits, "Never

When Elie Wiesel was a kid, he had extreme faith in his religion. Moshe the Beadle is the first person to question Wiesel’s faith. Moshe the Beadle asks Elie Wiesel why he prays; after pondering the thought, Wiesel replies, “I don’t know why” (p. 2). Elie Wiesel does not know the reason why he prays to God when he doesn’t receive anything back. His faith now seems weaker, despite the hours he devotes to God. God gives him Moshe the Beadle when he wants to study the cabala, and his father won’t help him, but once Wiesel arrives at the concentration camp, God shows no such help as he did at that time. Although God may have left Wiesel, his father stepped up to take care of him and show him that all

People often begin to lose faith in God because of the results they faced from their life experiences. Some face things that seem cruel and unbearable while others are “confronted with the information presented from another viewpoint that rejects God” (Gospel Billboards). Elie was told by his father to never lose his faith in God, it would help him get through tough times and keep him strong. The faith is the only strong force that helped Elie Wiesel get through the Holocaust. Through experiences that involve cruel and unbearable moments, people start questioning whether God has the answers to life’s problems. This results in faith beginning to weaken, people stop communicating with God, which makes it easier for one’s faith to diminish. We encounter Elie questioning and refusing God, but also see his contradictory behavior he exhibits to praise. However, throughout the book, Eliezer witnesses and experiences things that leads him to lose his faith in his religion. The longer he stays in the concentration camps, the more he experiences and sees cruelty and suffering. Eliezer believes that people who pray to a God who allows their families to suffer and die are more stronger and forgiving to God. Elie was angry at God, he thought God didn’t deserve his praises or honors because he expected God to come save him but he never did. He observes people die and others around him slowly lose hope, starve, Elie ceases to believe that God could exist at all now. “Where He is? This

Elie was a holocaust victim who was almost forced, by other jews, into a furnace, by order of the Nazis. “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” Elie was very religious before the Holocaust and yet on the first night at Auschwitz he lost his faith in God. He regained faith

Elie’s faith before being exposed to the concentration camps is apparent and he works hard to strengthen and grow his faith. All throughout Night, Wiesel shows the eminent effect faith has on individual’s actions and attitude. At the beginning of Night, Elie’s faith is a key feature of his lifestyle and attitude. Studying under the wisdom of Moishe the Beadle, Elie can put his faith in retrospect as he says, “In the course of those evenings I became convinced that Moishe the Beadle would help me enter eternity, into that time when question and answer would become one” (Wiesel 5). It is very clear that Elie is very emotionally and physically invested in his faith. Before camp Elie was so eager to expand and connect to his faith in which he becomes, “convinced” that he fully understands his faith proving him to be a devout Jewish boy. Thus because, Moishe the Beadle is helping him “enter eternity” and build his faith. Elie’s whole life revolves

Elie and his father are taken to Auschwitz where they are separated from the rest of the family and first hear about atrocities such as the incinerators and gas showers. In the beginning Elie believes that everything is a rumor, a lie, that humankind cannot perform such crimes, but he soon is forced to witness the demise in front of his eyes. This is when his outlook on his faith starts to waver. While watching the smoke billow up from a crematory, Elie hears a man standing next to him begging him to pray, and for the first time in his life Wiesel turns away from God. “The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank him for?” (31).

Wiesel struggled a lot with his faith in Night. Before the Holocaust he had full faith in God. But his faith and trust in God started to slip throughout his time in the concentration camp. The breaking point in where Wiesel completely lost his faith in God was when the young pipel was hung. After witnessing

The author demonstrates that an adverse atmosphere can cause a person to relinquish their faith. The author establishes the purpose through the sufferings of Moishe the Beadle, Wiesel’s torment and plight of other prisoners in the concentration camp.

Though faithful as they enter the horrific camps of Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Buna, Birknau, Dachau, and Buchenwald, the Jews become capricious. They start losing grip and begin falling down the slippery slope of death the Germans set up for them as more horrors of the camps become unveiled. Soon after arriving in the camp and being told about the crematoria, he felt “anger rising with me [Elie]. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent” (33). This is the first time that his faith is challenged. After a few days in Auschwitz he “had ceased to pray. I [Elie] was not denying His existence, but doubted His absolute justice” (45). As seen, Elie is beginning to have doubts about God and therefore his belief and faith in him. Finally, when Elie is looking for God to come though he doesn’t and he asks,

Unfortunately, the stay in the camps worsened thousands of people's trust in their God, including a young boy who loved his religion more than anything, a teenager named Elie Wiesel. When first introduced to the younger version of the author, he’s extremely religious. Unlike other children his age who may go play with others after school, Elie preferred to “[study] the Talmud and by night [he] ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the

Elie saw his friends, family, and other Jews degraded and murdered. Elie writes in this book “My God, to whom I was so devoted, to whom I had so much faith, was also murdered by the Nazis,” Elie evolved from a faithful child to a broken man who Questioned his belief in God. As a 14 year old boy separated from his only home and family and sent to a concentration camp in Birkenau, where his mother and sister were tortured and killed in the fire filled hole.

Adolf Hitler came to power in January of 1933 over Germany by president Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler hated Jews and blamed them for everything bad that ever happened to Germany. With his rise to power, he would put into action his plan for the elimination of jews otherwise known as the “final solution”. The Final solution made jews lived in fenced-in cities called a ghetto until they could be shipped off to labor camps or death camps (concentration camps). Once the Jews were at the concentration camps they would have to work to their death or be killed immediately in a gas chamber, death squad, and etc. Concentration camps were a brutal place to be much less die in, which happened to most jews during World War 11. The first concentration camp