Night Essay

Night, a memoir written by a holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, is a horrific, almost unbearable story of a boy who lived through the nightmares of the Auschwitz camps. Elie and his family lived in Sighet, Germany, where they were taken to live in a fraction of the town strictly for Jewish people called Ghettos. The Ghettos were meant to isolate the jews from the Germans. The German guards went through all the ghettos and began evacuating all the people. They detained and transported the Jews to concentration camps, where most of the time they did not survive. Elie’s life was forever changed as he lived through the various parts of the Auschwitz concentration camps. There he was separated from his mother and sister, tortured, starved …show more content…
When Elie and his family arrived to the camp the Guards ordered the men to go to the right and the women to go to the left. They were being separated, unknown that it would be forever.. When Elie’s mother and sister went their way, Elie looked over at them: “My mother was stroking my sister’s blonde hair, as if to protect her” (Wiesel 29). Immediately, Elie knew what his mother's intentions were by just observing what she was doing. Elie's mother had just stroked his sister's hair and he knew she was trying to keep her close to protect her from the outside world. Now, it's just Elie and his father, they had begun to continue through the first selection. The guards had motioned them to go left, which meant that they were heading to the crematorium. They continued walking and Elie was confused and bewildered that those things were actually happening. He looked to his father: “Father, if that is true, then I don't want to wait. I’ll run into the electrified barbed wire. That would be easier than a slow death in the flames. He didn’t answer. He was weeping. His body was shaking” Elie’s father had not answered to him verbally but through his body language and emotions. He was filled with sadness and Elie picked up on his emotions. In that moment, words weren't needed for him to understand. After contemplating it, Elie did not choose to end his life on the fence and …show more content…
Elie then began working at a warehouse and his boss Idek had serious anger problems. Everyone in the warehouse tried to avoid him. One day Idek decided to vent his fury out on Elie. He began beating him harder and harder to release his own anger. Within seconds, Idek calmed down and had sent Elie back to work: “ I dragged myself to my corner. I was aching all over. I felt a cool hand wiping the blood from my forehead. It was the French girl she was smiling her mournful smile as she slipped me a crust of bread. She looked straight into my eyes. I knew she wanted to talk to me but that she was paralyzed by fear” (Wiesel 53). Although, it was dangerous to speak, she showed Elie that she cared and felt his pain the best she could by smiling and slipping him bread crust. The war was progressing and the Russians begun to close in on the camp and the soldiers at camp were ordered to evacuate everyone. The guards had the prisoners run faster and faster, in the constant falling snow. Elie became increasingly tired and the idea of dying began to fascinate him. He began debating if he should just let go but thought to himself, “My Father's presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate” (Wiesel 86). Elie’s father, a much older man, continued to run for Elie's sake and Elie saw that by how his father had not given up while they were