Injustice “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never. (Wiesel)” Throughout the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer, the protagonist, is transported and moved to numerous concentration camps. His story, which is corresponding to Wiesel’s biography, is representative to the lives of a billion other Jews. Jews were stripped away from their families, beliefs, identity, and freedom. They could no longer express their faith in God or have the human right to live where desired. During the holocaust, nothing was fair, everything was dark and cruel. …show more content…
One quote from the book is “I spent my days in total idleness. With only one desire: to eat. I no longer thought of my father, or my mother. From time to time, I would dream. But only about soups, and extra ration of soup." (pg. 113) For them, food was equivalent to freedom. They fought aggressively like animals for a crumb of bread. It was unfair that prisoners were given a bit of soup or a slice of bread and shot at for being outside on sight . The prisoners are starved, shaved, beaten, and treated as “filthy dogs,” all while working forcedly throughout the day. Eliezer and Shlomo had to move heavy stones to wagons without having strength left. Family members were separated just because they didn’t fit the age range. Many just died because they could not last anymore, like Wiesel’s father. There was this thing called selection. It consisted that the Germans selected the most fit. Eliezer and Shlomo had to daily confront the injustice of maybe one day be separated. He is there exposed to the deepest inhumanity of which man is capable
Elie’s story resumes at Buna, a concentration camp that rumored to not be as harsh as others, according to the veteran inmates. He and his group are sent through medical checkups to determine what they will do next. They then go to the orchestra’s block where they march and meet some of the musicians. This contains an example of the inhumanity of humankind, not through physical abuse, but taking away rights. A violinist mentioned that Jews were not allowed to play music by Beethoven, which also shows a contrast between Jews’ and Non-Jews’ privileges.
Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, documented the horrible and gruesome experiences that the Jewish people fo that time went through. Himself and the rest of the Jews were dehumanized while living at the concentration camps run by the Nazis all across Germany. Attacked by the Nazis, the Jews were being formed into the lowest form of life on Earth. Their families taken from them, personal belongings either taken or destroyed, and finally their hopes and beliefs were demolished. The Jews were divided into categories based on their overall health.
Silence towards injustice, is perhaps the most ignorant way to prevent dehumanization from repeating again. In the story Night, this action is repeated without thought or question and has resulted in pain and agony. To prevent this, humanity must be able to protect itself before protecting others, otherwise there is no point in continuing a pointless battle without any motivation. In the documentation of Elie Wiesel, a clear description of Elie Wiesel’s beliefs is that once a witnesses has seen a key event in a crime or timeline, that they have full obligation to come forward and admit they have seen that right in front of the authorities.
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky,” are the words Elie spoke upon his first arrival in a concentration camp, highlighting the importance of this quote is the use of anaphora on the words, “Never shall I forget”(Wiesel 32). The author of the autobiography, Elie Wiesel, is a Jew born in Sighetu Marmației, România who was taken by the Nazis to Auschwitz when he was only fifteen. His autobiography, Night, depicts his firsthand experience as a prisoner during the Holocaust.
This can be interpreted by any means necessary to maximize output of produce, including forced labour, brutal mistreatment, and random public executions to scare the workers to remind them what would happen if one would rebel or break a rule. Once one is selected to work, labour in these camps are very intensive; the daily work hours for is generally 17 hours per day and only a few hours of sleep. With this in mind, being very tired can lead to punishment like being whipped or even death. An addition to this kind of treatment is the kind of food that is served, which is not enough for survive. Your average ration in the morning consisted of bread that is made out of flour and sawdust with a hot cup of “coffee”.
They had to give their age and profession which led the baton to choose whether they were going to the left or right and either meant you were going to the prison or the crematorium. To the left was the crematorium that looked like huge flames rising from the ditch and something burning from that side, “I did see this, with my own eyes…children thrown into the flames” (Wiesel 32). This quote strongly demonstrates dehumanization through the actions of throwing a baby, not even a child yet, to the flames and killing them. No humanity is being shown throughout this camp and the SS officers are showing no pity towards these babies. Along with getting chosen which route jews shall go, they still don't have any right to speak up about it.
Chapter One: I think it is interesting that Elie is so devoted to his religion, Judaism, at such a young age. As the chapter begins, Elie is 12 years old and already seeking experiences that are usually reserved for individuals over 30 years old. For example, he wants to find a master, someone to learn from, and he wishes to study mysticism.
Although the prisoners were fed everyday, the nutrition levels were very low. Since their nutrition levels
Long Hours of Darkness “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.... Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live” (32). Never shall we forget the atrocious events that happened to upwards of six million Jews during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a genocide run by Adolf Hitler to exterminate nearly a whole population of Jews and very few prisoners lived to tell their treacherous stories.
From the small town of Sighet in Transylvania to the huge concentration camps of Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel, the author and victim of the book Night, the horrifying experience of the Holocaust. Wiesel is a 15 year old Jewish boy who was captured by the Germans or “Nazis” during WWII. He went through an overwhelming amount of trauma, like when he got separated from his mother and sisters and watching his father suffer an unbearable amount of pain that eventually killed him. The fact is, power is a tool that can corrupt itself and others, it can ruin people’s lives and it can do that without people even realizing it.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the personal tale of his account of the inhumanity and brutality the Nazis showed during the Holocaust. Night depicts the story of a young Jew from the small town of Sighet named Eliezer. Wiesel and his family are deported to the concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He must learn to survive with his father’s help until he finds liberation from the horror of the camp. This memoir, however, hides a greater lesson that can only be revealed through careful analyzation.
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
Eliezer has to learn how to adapt to not having as food as he used to, being beaten for no reason, and watching daily hangings. Eliezer specifically remembers one particular hanging of a young boy, a pipel, whose master has been gathered arms for the resistance. Eliezer said “But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing… ” Eliezer remembers how the child cried and remained alive for the next half an hour, before his body finally gives out and the child dies. Towards the end of the book, as the group that Eliezer and his father are in keeps running around Germany, and Eliezer has a choice to give up and die on the side of a road, but he continues to run because of his father. Eliezer says “My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me.
In his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Elie Wiesel illustrates how to remain silent while injustice is happening is to support that injustice and people should never stand by while injustice is happening. In Elie Wiesel's Memoir Night, Elie depicts how he watched his father get slapped with “...such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours.” Elie then describes how he reacted and felt, he says “My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked.” (Wiesel 39). He then says that “remorse began to gnaw at me.”
Eliezer's lack of tears and feelings when his father suffered to death show that the elimination of his family member