1. After the hanging of a child, Elie hears someone say, “‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows…’ That night, the soup tasted of corpses” (Wiesel 65). Though optimistic at first, Elie Wiesel, along with many others at the concentration camps, began to lose faith in God. The people doubted the existence of their God more and more as events happened. After witnessing the execution, Elie is unable to enjoy his soup because of the grim tone created by the hanging the child. While the Nazis intended public hanging as a means to keep prisoners in check, it turns into a dark ritual that makes prisoners less productive. 2. Soon after Elie was transferred
My symbol was the block. I thought this represented the ghettos and living spaces in the camps. My first detail is that Elie stayed in a ghetto when he first got involved in the war. “Two ghettos were created in Sighet.” (Wiesel 11)
The way the officers treated the Jews made them feel like they weren't human anymore, and no better than inanimate objects. “You...you...you…” They pointed their fingers, the way one might choose cattle, or merchandise” (49). The officers acted as if the task of deciding who lived and who died was easy and required almost no thought. Again, the jewish people are not only compared to as dogs, but as merchandise.
“Every few yards, there stood an SS man, his machine gun trained on us. Hand in hand we followed the throng.” ( pg. 29) Eliezer's instinct for survival outweighs everything else. Although Eliezer and his family did not want to go to Auschwitz, they went because they were threatened if they did not comply. The SS guards would have killed anyone who did not follow orders, so they left their home and everything they have every known in order to survive.
1- Elie Wiesel is comparing the soup to the taste of corpses because before they went to get their soup to eat, they watched the hanging of three bodies, two men and a child. They had to watch the light child struggle for life in the noose, watching him for half an hour up close until he died, no one wanted to see a child get hanged at an age like that. I feel that the emotions Elie is trying to communicate with us is extreme sadness and sorrow not only because of the death of the two prisoners, but because of the death of the boy. This quote to me, means that because of what he saw up close and for a half an hour, the 13 year old boy trying to cling to his life in the noose, had left a bad taste in his mouth for the soup.
Night Response Journals Response #1 “The time has come...you must all leave” (Officers page 16). At this time in Elie and his family, friends and other resident are being escorted out of the harsh ghetto. People are getting dragged out of their homes person by person, some people get to stay longer than others.
Q5: After I read this book, this made me understand how much the Jews has struggled in the camps. Before I read this book, I thought the concentration camps is where Jews had to work until there numbers on their arm would be called out to get killed. They would killed them only by using the gas chambers which that wasn't the case at all. A lot of Jews were killed by machine guns. Babies were used as target practices for shooting.
“‘I wanted to return to Sighet to describe to you my death so that you might ready yourselves while there is still time. Life? I no longer care to live…but I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me’” (Wiesel 7).
The first piece of advice about how to survive, given to Wiesel, was from a young Pole, a prisoner in charge of one of the prison blocks. After Eliezer, his father, and the rest of the selected prisoners, made the short march from Birkenau to Auschwitz. Upon arrival they were forced to shower. After the showers, they were left outside cold and wet, naked and never given the clothes they were promised. Guards came and told the prisoners they had to run, “The faster you run, the sooner you can go to bed” (page 38).
Prologue The Holocaust was a tragedy that happened in the 1940’s . It took around 11 million lives, 6 million of them being Jews. The victims of the Holocaust went through hell. They were starved, beat, and separated from their families.
Grace Trost Night by Elie Wiesel March 30, 2015 Book 1. I would've said to him,"If there really is a God then he would send mercy as it is necessary, but if there isn't then what is the point of wanting to die to escape this place because if you see death as a relief because you would be going to heaven, but if there is no God then there is no heaven to go to. You just have to hang on and believe that God will save you when the time is right. God is just testing our faith and we need to stay strong so that he will have the joy of going to heaven and being with him once this is all over.
Elie believes it's better to fend for oneself rather to help one another. Elie and his father have been in Auschwitz for 3 weeks. His tent leader was had been explaining what they were to do this week. He says three days in quarantine after you will go to work and tomorrow medical checkup. He then asks Elie if he wants to get into a good unit.
Elie and the other prisoners are fully exposed to the horrible inhumanity of the Nazis. Due to the brutal methods of the Nazis, they are transformed from respected individuals into obedient, animal-like automatons.
Hitler began his fourth wave. “”The News is terrible,” he said at last. And then one word: “Transports.” The ghetto was to be liquidated entirely. Departures were to take place street by street, starting the next day.”
Chapter 5 During the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel changes from a Spiritual and a boy with faith, to a cold hearted, spiritually dead emotional man. And throughout chapter we can see how he questions God, and also to do things such as a protest, or a sign to rebel against God. ”Why, but why should I bless him?Every fiber in me rebelled. Because he caused thousands of children to burn in his Mass grave? Because in His great might, he had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death?”.
Chapter One Summary: In chapter one of Night by Elie Wiesel, the some of the characters of the story are introduced and the conflict begins. The main character is the author because this is an autobiographical novel. Eliezer was a Jew during Hitler’s reign in which Jews were persecuted. The book starts out with the author describing his faith.