The Noose Tightens ' For Two Important Reasons

The advance of Hitler and his soldiers were daunting. Although, the German citizens had nothing to fear. They went on with their daily routines and lived life as nothing had happened. They were not disrupted nearly as much as the unfortunate Jewish population facing mass genocides. The Jews were wrenched out of their homes, forced into the ghettos, and lost all of their civil rights. They were no longer treated like citizens or people by the Nazis. As the Jews were decried, the majority of German citizens did not lend a helping hand. The German townspeople in the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, remained satisfied, despite the detention of the Jews because they neglected the appalling actions against the Jews, were self-centered, and power hungry.

Through-out the novel Night’, it is shown that under such cruel and heartless conditions that the prisoners begin to turn on each other. Such acts of violence not only from the Germans but also from fallow in-mates attack and sometimes kill one another. While for some they didn’t want to act in such horrific ways, but only to survive they didn’t what was needed. One of the first glimpses of how the prisoners would do what even it takes to survive even if it meet kill someone close to them was that of the son and father. On the train to Buchenwald, as it passes through German towns, some German works through a little bit of bread into the carts of the train, as the prisoners begin to fight over the bread the works get amused by it and begin to throw more. As a result of the bread being thrown on the train many die, to the amusement of the German works. One of the in-mates that die is through, prisoners turning on each other, the old man died as a result of his own son not having any will-power it overcome the temptation of being able to

The Jews were restricted in no matter what they did even for religious events they were restrained by the deadly atmosphere. At the end of Rosh Hashanah they gathered in silence "surrounded by the electric barbed wire." (Wiesel 66) This little detail Wiesel mentions really adds to the aggressive theme of the story, even during Jewish tradition the Nazis went to drastic measures to contain them. During one of Wiesel's difficult selections he describes the aggressive attitude that was necessary to pass.

The novel states how the prisoners had very little or no clothes. They did get shoes, however the Nazis uncompationently gave them the worn, bad quality pairs, while the new, better quality shoes were given to Germany. The innocent Jews still got fed by the Nazis, but only if they worked. There was a high percentage deaths if you were sent to the concentration camps. In the 1930’s and 1940’s, innocent people were living in horrendous fear at all times. Yolen gets her point across by writing a compassionate novel using a honorable, sympathetic tone. Yolen speaks of her personal experience with strong, and firm vocabulary. Yolen informs us about the Jewish traditions. She uses repetitive language to reinforce the importance of the point shes making. She shows us how innocent the Jews were during that time by honoring and remembering the

In “night” we see how the Jewish people are being oppressed and dehumanized in so many ways. One example is “I became A-7713. From now on, I had no other name” (PG.42). This quote shows how they were stripped of their identities and replaced it with a simple number. As if they were just a number on a sheet of paper. We see in the book how the Nazis only see the Jewish people as numbers and had no knowledge of their actual lives or their identities. They are also given such little amounts of food,

(109) The Jews by lose their faith in their god when the Germans hung a little boy, and he was dangling there struggling to die, and a Jew next to Elie said “where is god when this boy is suffering?” Elie said back to the man “God is here, he is hanging from the ropes” ( 90) As a result Elie loses faith in hs god. Inhumanity and cruelty were shown when the Jews were stripped of their identity, hair, jewelry, and shoes. The Germans stripped the Jews of everything because they did not want to have individuality among the Jews in the camps. The Germans gave the Jews numbers that were tattooed on the arms so they could be kept up with. It is almost like in prison how they have numbers so they do not get mixed up or lost track of. Once they had numbers the Jews were told to go to the barracks and they were given striped blue and white uniforms. This was also savage because it was the middle of winter. The Jews wore very little clothing causing some Jews to die from the cold and

Day by day the Nazi’s would come and take people off the streets and they would disappear and never return. Adolf Hitler had been in power and declared that Europe would be Jew free. From this point on, Yanek and the rest of the Jewish population in Europe had been hiding, in fear of the Nazi’s.

The basis of this novel relies on the need to show that these men were not necessarily physically forced to commit these heinous acts, but that they mentally and psychologically had their hands tied. These men were just as the title of this novel states: ordinary—they were middle-aged men who were lower-middle class, and they had families and worked for a living; they were entirely and frightfully normal, but in just a short span of time they had executed 1800 Jews in a single day. Through this novel and excerpts from Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History, Browning’s theory about the police battalion executioners can be proven accurate and it gives an explanation for these men’s actions. When giving this order to Police Battalion 101 their commander, Wilhelm Trapp, relayed the orders with tears in his eyes, but when given the opportunity, many of the men did not opt out of the executing. The first man to step out began to be berated by Captain Hoffmann but was stopped by Trapp. Trapp and Hoffmann show the nature of this time—while the compassionate and reasonable Trapp shows that the men have an escape out of their

In chapter 1, the Germans were kind and polite to the Jews in order to gain their trust. For example, the Germans treated the women with respect and bought them chocolates. In chapter 2, this behaviour changed dramatically. For example, the German officers beat the Jews and had them cramped into cattlecars until they reached their destination, which was Auschwitz. This treatment is also a form of irony for the Jewish people, as they did not expect this behaviour from the polite German officers they had come to know in chapter 1.

In the story it states “Wiesel received 25 lashes after witnessing Idek and a Polish girl fornicating.”(57), and also in this other page “You shall receive 5 times more if you dare tell anyone you saw!”(58). Elie Wiesel did not have anything to do with these two characters fornicating and got punished just because he saw them. The Nazis are messed up for this because he was not the one that committed the act. The Jews were treated unfairly ,not just unfair but they were also burned, tortured, strangled and murdered. In article four it states, “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”in the book it states, “Here and there, the police lashing out with their clubs:’Faster!”(19). Humans should not be lashed which is also a sign of slavery, and slavery is against this article. Humans can not be treated like this because it is not right . If you think about it in a certain way ,as in you being in that situation, where someone just comes out of nowhere and starts hitting you and you are defenseless. It is wrong because these Jews have not committed a crime,to be

Chapters 3 to 5 express the many pains that all Jewish people alike were subjected to. Many’s perspectives, moralities, etc changed, but what was the Germans to gain for this? Did this benefit their agenda at all? In chapter 3 of Night, by Elie Wiesel, many Jewish people are stripped of their humanities through the processes of assigning numbers in place of names, shaving off body hair, removing gold dental work, and wearing the same clothing in concentration camps.

In view of the officials wanting their religious celebration to be over quick because the Germans arrested the leaders of the Jewish community and how their first edict was “Jews were prohibited from leaving their residences for three days”(wiesel 10). It clearly shows how the jews were even not being able to have peace on studying their religion. In addition, was when Hungarian police was kicking all the jews from their house. When the police start saying “All Jews,outside!Hurry!”(wiesel 16) it conveys how the police are not being fair to the Jews.

All hope was lost in escape. The jews had already died inside, they cared no longer for freedom, just death. This shows just how extremely the cruelty affected them. It was explained earlier that they were being drained of emotion, and that they were. They felt nothing anymore as a result of this; the jews had fell into

society, and it was between the nazi’s angainst the minorities. The nazi’s wanted, in their opinion, a perfect society. It didn’t have jews, communists, gypsies, among others. In this book, these minorities are put in extermination camps where they are killed and surviving ones are shipped to other camps. The nazi’s didn’t want anyone else that didn’t look and act like them.

The main characters are people who want to survive but there is a long and difficult way in front of them which they will have to conquer. However, they have already adapted to this kind of life and they are survivors. This page is interesting and admirable because of the middle panel where the readers can see Anja and Vladek from behind going in the unknown direction. They are singled out because other survivors seem to know where they are going because one of the people says: “We’ll be hiding at this address. When you find a safe place, try to contact us, Vladek” (Spiegelman 125). The survivors care about the well-being of one another. Anja and Vladek are depicted from the upper angle which implies their vulnerability and the fact that they have no shelter. There is nowhere to go and the only path is through the road in the shape of the swastika. It is clear that they are the survivors of the Holocaust, but it does not mean that they have solved all of their problems. They are alive and they have to find new life now which is going to be difficult. It can be observed from the panel that they are elegant and brave people and they are Art’s parents. They are holding hands, because their intimacy is all they have and they are probably wearing all of the clothes they possess. It is obvious that they were people who were not poor, but the Holocaust happened and made them lose their