Night Essay
Throughout world war two, thousands upon thousands of Jews around Europe were forcefully deported to inhumane concentration camps by the Nazis, who they believed were unequal to them. Millions died, however, many also survived and some spoke of their experiences. In his memoir Night, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel recounts the horrors and feats that he and his father encountered while imprisoned in numerous concentration camps towards the end of WWII. During that time, Elie faced many decisions that had pronounced impacts on his beliefs, faith in humanity, and life. From the decisions he makes, Elie's innocence and identity are both negatively, and positively changed throughout his experience as a concentration camp prisoner.
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At their arrival at Birkenau, Elie is confronted by an inmate who asks him his age and tells him, “No you’re eighteen (Wiesel 30).” When an officer then asks Elie his age, he lies and tells him he is eighteen, his father also lies. This decision was positive in the moment, allowing them to be sent to a labor camp together instead of the crematorium, but in the long road, had negative implications. It is negative due to all the atrocities that he and his father experience in their fight to stay together and alive as prisoners in the concentration camps. Elie's innocence is also stripped from him afterward when he witnesses, “A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes ... children thrown into the flames (Wiesel 32).” Elie did not understand how people were doing this to others, this was the beginning of Elie’s lost hope in humanity after seeing this. During this, he also begins to question his faith in God, with anger he asks, “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 …show more content…
Elie had the choice to remain at the camp but thought it was best to evacuate believing that those who remained would be killed. This choice negatively impacted his life because of the hardships he and his father had to endure afterwards such as marching/running through the snow, the deaths of Elie's friends Zalman and Juliek, near-death misses, and in the future, the death of his father. It was negative because he and his father could have been saved if they stayed, due to the camp being liberated two days after they had left. This affected his identity and innocence by causing him to further lose his faith in humanity. This is because on the journey to Gliewitz, Elie was taking shelter in a shed until Rabbi Eliahu came in asking people if they had seen his son. Elie then realizes that his son had purposefully left him while they were running to increase his own chance of survival. After telling Rabbi Eliahu he has not seen him, Elie then prays, "Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu's son has done (Wiesel 91)." He wishes he won't give into his own selfish desires and leave his father as well, this causes him to further lose his faith in humanity due to the discovery of Rabbi Eliahu’s son abandoning
Christian Rock English 2 Mrs. Burd 02/27/2023 The Night Essay In the book "The Night '' by Elie Wiesel, Shows the horrific events of Elie’s experience in Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz during the Holocaust. This book presents a powerful and sad account of the atrocities committed by the Nazis during this period of history. For example, Elie uses imagery and pictionary words to describe the events of the concentration camp Auschwitz.
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.
He made it out alive. The choiceless choices and being alongside his father helped Elie greatly in this process. If he did not make the choices he did in camp, he would not have made it out alive. By telling the SS officer that he was eighteen, he was not sent to the crematorium to die. Even though choosing to work meant he had to undergo undeniably hard conditions, he did it and made it through.
He started losing his father as the hard labor and rest slowly takes over him. Knowing that he has to help his father no matter what happens, it doesn’t end that way. Remembering back, Elie witnessed the act of Rabbi Eliahu and his son’s relationship. No way did he ever think what couldn’t be true become true: “I gave him what was left of my soup. But my heart was heavy.
It was only a fraction of a second, but it left me feeling guilty” (111). Elie starts to hope his father dies so he can focus on himself and not have to deal with the old man who was getting abused and was too weak to do
Dylan Rothman Mrs. Rizk English II 25 January 2023 Night Essay In the novel "Night" by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist, Elie, struggles both spiritually and physically throughout the story. The novel is a memoir of Wiesel's time spent in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. The physical and spiritual struggles that Elie faces serve as a powerful testimony to the atrocities of the Holocaust and the devastating impact it had on the lives of those who lived through it.
Since the boys are different ages and have different experiences at the camps, the focus of innocence will vary between the children. Elie is a fifteen year old boy who sees things that force him to grow up and is the one who loses his innocence upon arrival at the camp. Elie arrives and sees, “Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes... children thrown into the flames,” which forces him to grow up because that can be him at any moment (Wiesel 32).
Even in the wretched situation that the Jews were going through, Elie prays that he himself did not think like the son that he would stay by his father. Elie, who still had his innocence and was not yet aware of the changes in his life, had a major shift of opinion later on in the book when he wrote “if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath?” (Wiesel 54) Elie had lost his identity and himself but that was what living in a concentration camp had made Elie turn into and eventually his survival began to mean
Elie Wiesel loses his innocence during his time in the Holocaust from events detailing the brutality of man. Elie detailed his life as a young adolescent boy at the beginning of his memoir, and it exemplified a nice and easy life not full of worry. However, when he gets sent on his journey through the concentration camps, it would be clear
Even through all of those collapsed relationships, Elie and his father rely on each other up until the moment of Elie’s fathers passing. When Elie and his father make it through the selection thanks to the help of the man, Their hopes are immediately derailed when another Jewish man tells them that they are headed straight for the crematorium, and with flames in sight, all hope they had to survive was immediately lost. When hope is lost, Elie’s father starts to pray and this is when Elie starts to lose faith. “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why
NIght essay The Holocaust was a tragic time period that killed over 6.6 million Jewish People from 1933-1945. One book that's called Night by Elie Wiesel tells us about his background and what he went through during the holocaust and how he survived. Elie went through hell and back during the whole thing he lost his mother and little sister the second he got to the camp site.
The novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, portrays a first hand account of a Jew as it follows the journey of Elie during the Holocaust. A literary critic describes Elie’s life: “Growing up in a small village in Romania, his world revolved around family, religious study, community, and God. Yet his family, community, and his innocent faith were destroyed upon the deportation of his
Night, an autobiography that was written by Elie Wiesel, is from his perspective as a prisoner. The book focuses on Wiesel and his father experiencing the torture that the Nazis put them through, and the unspeakable events that Wiesel witnessed. The author, Wiesel, was one of the handfuls of survivors to be able to tell his time about the appalling incidents that occurred during the Holocaust. That being the case, in the memoir Night, Wiesel uses somber descriptive diction, along with vivid syntax to portray the dehumanizing actions of the Nazis and to invoke empathy to the reader.
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.
Others remain faithful and retain the hope that He is on their side, explaining these happenstances as an example of God’s mysterious ways. While this may as well be the case, Elie stops praying, believing that he has been abandoned. He finds no hope of redemption in the Talmud like