Why Did Elie Wiesel Change

     The spiritual change in Elie was substantial. He went from a pious, devout Jew who spent countless of hours studying his faith. He never questioned God, but that is probably because everything was always good. During his stay at the concentration camps, Elie never stops believing in God, although he does question what he is doing. On page 64, Elie says, “Why, but why I should I bless Him? In every fiber I rebelled. Because He had thousands of children burned in His pits? Because He kept six crematories working night and day, on Sundays and feast days? Because in His great might He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many factories of death?…” This shows the

While Elie was in the concentration camp he changed the way he acted. This new behavior led him to develop new character traits. While Ellie was in the concentration camp he became angry at many things. For example “I would have dug my nails into the criminals flesh” (Wisel 39). Elie shows extreme anger when the Nazi officials are beating Elie’s father. Elie was angry because the Nazi soldiers were not treating them nicely and keeping them in poor conditions. Elie was usually not a person to display anger, but he shows this when his family members are being hurt. Elie wants to stand up for what is right and for his family members. Despite his studying, Elie wavered in his belief in Kabbalah while he was at the camp. Elie was a religious boy before he went to Auschwitz, but while in the camp, he became angry at God. In the book Elie says, “‘Where are You, my God?’” (66). Elie is wondering why God is not helping the Jews. Elie had complete faith in his religion until he experienced and witnessed such horrible suffering. He had been taught that God will punish evil and save the righteous. However, when Elie saw that God was not helping the Jews situation,

Elie loses complete faith in god in many points where god let him down. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of the misery he was facing. "Why should I sanctify his name? The Almighty, the eternal, and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent..."(page 33). Elie was confused, because he doesn’t know why the Germans would kill his race amongst many others, and he does not know why god could let such thing happen to innocent people. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(page 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and a courage to

Over the course of his time there, he is worked hard and witnesses horrific deaths. Because of all the traumatic events that occurred, he lost faith in the God he once believed in unconditionally. John Roth, author of In the Beginning, explained that the holocaust could only have happened if there was no God (35). However this is not true. In actuality, Eliezer explains that there is a God, he just does not believe in His power anymore. Elie does not say that he has become an atheist or that God had died as many people believe” (Brown 72). Elie simply does not believe in Him because of all the events that occurred while he was in the concentration camps.

Throughout the time Elie lived through the Holocaust, his devotion and relationship with God greatly changed. In the beginning of his life, Elie was a devoted observant Jew, who studied everyday, and went the synagogue and cry. He was also trying to convince his father to study the Kabbalah, so he could later become a Rabbi. But while in the camps, with all of the suffering, and labor, Elie begins to question God. While his dad was praying, Elie began to feel anger, “Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (Wiesel 33). Elie sees what is happening around them, with people being burned and killed, and becomes

When Elie first begins to lose his faith he gets the loss of God. When Elie loses hope it happens when everyone begins to pray to god and he didn't feel the need to anymore. “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (Wiesel 33). When Elie loses faith in God while he's in the camps, it's like how people begin to lose faith or trust in their friends if they

He suffered from a loss of humanity after the death of his father. Elie felt that “If [he] could have searched the recesses of [his] feeble conscience, [he] might have found something like: Free at last!...” (Wiesel, 112). The phrase “Free at last!...” implies that Eliezer felt relieved that he was no longer responsible for keeping his father alive and did not have to worry about anything except himself. Elie lost his sense of compassion, which is a major component of being human. He didn’t feel remorseful like how a son usually feels when they lose a loved one. Furthermore, Eliezer began to lose his compassion toward his family and became unconcerned with anybody except for himself. Elie looked back and saw how truly dejected he was; “With only one desire: to eat. [He] no longer thought of [his] father, or [his] mother. ” (Wiesel, 113). By being focused on his personal needs, he drastically changed from being sympathetic to being self-centered. This internal change was caused by the terrors that increasingly built while he remained on the dreadful journey during the Holocaust. Since he felt threatened by everyone else that was alive, he lost his sense of empathy and only had thoughts for himself. When the Holocaust approached to an end, Elie “look[ed] at [himself] in the mirror… [he] had not seen [himself] since

During the holocaust it caused Elie to lose his faith. He couldn’t believe that god would let something so catastrophic happen. " It's over, God is no longer with us"(Weisel pg.76). God was his focus and he lost that part of him; because of that, he didn’t recognize himself. Although, he changes drastically in the inside and out. "

Once introduced to the camps, he begins to understand the horror of the camp. He witnesses a death of young ones who didn't get to live. Elie begins to question God why are you staying silent. He wonders why do I praise him if he does nothing. "For the first time, I felt anger rising within me, why should I sanctify his name? The almighty, the eternal and terrible master, chose to be silent" (33). Once the Jewish boy entered the concentration camps he had a big change of heart he discovered that God was horrible and did not care for us. This is the moment that he begins to question God due to seeing the atrocity in the camps. He begins to question the faith because of how God was

Through all the horrific and inhumane experiences, dehumanization deadened Elie's sense of life. The Holocaust was a horrific time in our Nation's history for Elie and as well as all the others. Whether we like it or not it happened. It is up to us to not let such a inhumane thing happen in the

During the Holocaust, Elie’s perspective on God and his religion was extremely changed. Before the effects of the Holocaust had reached him, he was incredibly devoted to his God and other parts of his religion. When he’s describing his early life before the camps and ghetto, he said that at age 12, “by day I studied

Elie had faith in God before he came to the camp, however his faith in God would change after his experience in the concentration camp. As a teenager growing up in the ghetto, his parents taught him that having faith in God was important and that no matter what happen in their lives, God will always be there to protect them from the evil that would manifest later on in life. For instance, when everyone made it back from the barber Elie and the others “were shouting thank God you are still alive” (Night pg. 35). As a result of this, Elie felt that he still had faith in God because those who were not sent to the fire was still alive. Because of this first time experience in the camp, this showed us that Elie believed that God was there protecting

He was the only survivor of his family. He watched the slow decline of his father and tried so hard to make him survive. Elie like some lost faith, he couldn’t understand if there was a God why would he want to make people suffer. One example of this is “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God ad my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” (34). This quote shows that the experience of the Holocaust is something on can forget, Elie will live his whole life and he wouldn’t forget it. He knew that his whole family was dead and that he was the lone survivor and couldn’t know

Elie will soon completely lose his humanity and innocence. His perception of the world is shaken because of the Holocaust. He challenges his old belief and faith, for he no longer believes God exists. The Jewish tradition is very important to Elie, but his experience in the concentration camp started to lose his morality and becomes

Initially, before Elie was taken to the concentration camp he was a powerless, curious, and kind boy. Wiesel wrote, “ I don’t know how I survived: I was weak, rather shy.” (vii) This evidence explains how Elie believed that he wasn’t the strongest one out of the group and was weaker, leading him to question how he made it through the holocaust. Also, this sentence shows that his physical figure may have been smaller along with his mental state being undetermined or weak. In continuation, Elie states in the book, “For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.” (xv) This evidence talks about how Elie does not want history to repeat itself and wishes that this tragic event will never happen again. Adding onto that, these sentences prove that Elie was a kind enough person to share his torture filled experiences with the world to further educate the youth and the older generations. Even though it pains him thinking of that depressing time in his life, he continues to stress how he would never want that to happen in the future and tell of his story. In the book, Wiesel wrote, “ Why do you pray?, he asked after a moment. Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (4) This text discusses how when Elie was praying, Moishe the Beadle began asking him very meaningful questions he didn’t know the answer to. This evidence leads me to believe that Elie was a very curious and lost person because it gives off a feeling of not knowing his true self or his meaning. Also, Elie is constantly wondering about life’s many secrets and eventually begins questioning God. Prior to the