Examples Of Identity In Night By Elie Wiesel

During the Holocaust many people lost everything, including belongings, family, friends, and even their lives. Even more people lost their identities. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses his identity because of the Germans. They took all of his possessions and his family. They even replaced his name with a number.

When Moishe asked Elie why he prayed, he always answered with “I don’t know”. He always cried when he prayed. When Moishe asked him why he was crying, he replied, “Because something inside of me felt the need to cry.”(pg 4)

To tell the truth, Elie’s beliefs before the Holocaust is very spiritual, godly and orthodox. He used to spend most of his time at the synagogue temple worshiping his God. Since he always cried while praying a man named Masha the Beadle asked him why he prayed and Elie’s thought it was a very strange question but he still answered him with a confused face on his look as if he had known idea what he was saying. Elie’s said why he lives and why does he breath he said again he doesn’t know.” I succeeded on my own finding a master for himself in the person of Mash the Beadle’’.

So, how was Wiesel denied his individuality? Well in the book it says “ We no longer have the right to frequent restaurants or cafes, to travel by rail, to attend synagogue, to be on the streets after six o’clock in the evening.” (Wiesel 11). The way this quote from the book proves that he was denied individuality is that the Jews didn’t have a choice about what they could and could not do while the Nazis took over. Then soon after, the ghettos were made and every single Jew was forced to live there for three days.

You experience the worst young. In Elie Wiesel “Night” Teenage Elie is Jewish and was sent to the concentration camp with his family and struggled to maintain his identity in the society he’s in. In this memoir Elie tries to stay strong and survive living in the concentration camp during 1941-1945. Living in an oppressive society impacts Elie’s identity by shaping his views about the hungarian police, people in the camp, and himself.

Indian social reformer B.R. Ambedkar once said of individuality: “Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.” Furthermore, Webster’s dictionary defines it as “the distinguishing character or personality of an individual.” In Night by Elie Wiesel, it seems that both the author and his fellow Semites’ sense of selves are virtually erased by Hitler and the Nazi Party.

After Elie and his father spend the night at the camp, Elie feels as if he has lost his innocence. When Elie first arrives at the camp, the first thing he sees when he walks inside is babies being thrown into a fire. Grown men being forced to burn and die right in front of him. Elie seeing this changes his outlook on life. He starts to feel as if his soul jumped into the fire but he physically did not.

Night is a memoir of a Jewish boy who lives to see the horrors during the Holocaust. He tells an emotional tale of his scarring experiences at multiple concentration camps. He begins with his family in his hometown of Sighet, where they are forced into supervised ghettos. The authorities then begin shipping the Jews into concentration camps, in which he is separated from his mother and sister. He and his dad are then forced to Auschwitz, where they begin their series of struggles.

For every individual, it is difficult to give up two than one. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie magnanimously inputs his blood and sweat by sacrificing his strength and rations for the survival of his father. He holds unconditional hopes of believing that he will be able to make not only himself survive through the brutal camps under German control, but also his father through his efforts. Through this, Elie uses the relationship with his father to suggest that individuals should be independent for better survival because it is more efficient to create a single, strong individual rather than two weak ones. Elie may have continuously helped his father in lengthening his endurance, but failed to straighten his father’s will.

For example, when Moishe the Beadle was first taken from Sighet by the Hungarian police, he had the courage to act dead and soon gain force so that he would be able to tell his experience to gullible Jewish citizens. Another example is on pages 31-32, Elie and his father had the courage to lie to an SS officer about their age and profession not knowing it would be the savior to their own fate. But that’s not all, after the myth that saved them from an eternal death, they still had to face many challenges that could easily end with their hope to live, with their illusion of getting to eat a good meal again, with their courage to survive. Some of these demands were selections and death marches, which were prime ways of dying with the taste of pure hatred, prime ways that could ruin all that you have survived for in an

In the span of a lifetime one often faces many adversities that stand within their path.  While some challenges will be overcome easily, others will take a lot more tenacity. When in the face of adversity it is key not to give up. One should always strive to persevere through their hardships, no matter how severe they seem to be. The author of the memoir “Night” Elie Wiesel, vividly describes his experiences in the concentration camp of Auschwitz.

One reoccurring theme that is present in the Holocaust is a change of identity with everyone involved. The incidents people confronted, especially the Jews, during this harsh time was life changing and traumatic. The identity of many in the concentration camps changed; young and innocent children developed into mature men. Elie Wiesel in the novella, Night, faces a change of identity within himself and the surrounding people, the Jews, through a variety of events that he encounters.

“A traumatic experience robs you of your identity” (Dr.Bill). Concentration camps during the agonizing Holocaust disallowed their prisoners to obtain a personal identity. The renowned memoir, Night, written by Holocaust survivor, Eliezer Wiesel, published in 1954 expands the apprehension of the life altering challenges and torment the Jewish society encountered from 1933 to 1945. Identity consists of an individual's distinctive characteristics, beliefs and mannerisms which was forbidden for the Jewish hostages of the Holocaust to attain. Elie’s identity was shaped and reshaped by the traumatic experiences the Jewish community persevered through.

It is a common assumption among numerous people in the world that the Holocaust never existed. In fact, almost fifty percent of the world population never even heard of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel helped people around the world learn about the Holocaust through his book “Night.” He wanted people to see the bravery, courage, and guilt of the Jews through his book. “Night” shows the horrific and malicious acts in the German concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Night by Elie Wiesel shows when humans are put in horrible situations, the acts of selfishness greatly increase. The book shows that when humans are in crisis like the Holocaust everyone is desperate to survive, so they will do anything they can to get their basic needs. The people forgot who they are as human, and how it made Elie and others act differently towards each other. Elie Wiesel, and everyone who he meets along the way want to survive this, at times they forget why they want to live. But no one wants to get defeated by the Germans.