...Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the story of the Holocaust, the mass genocide of the Jewish people and important event in WWII. The memoir Night begins in the polish town of Sighet. The story is About Elie Wiesel, a Jewish boy whose family gets deported to the concentration camp with other Jews from his town. Upon arrival his Mother and Sister, Tzipora are separated and executed by the Nazis in the Auschwitz death camp. Following that, after months of work, with the advancing allied front, the prisoners were forced to march all night to the Gleiwitz concentration camp. As Elie’s story continues, after being stuffed inside a camp barrack for 3 days without food or water, the Prisoners were let out for a selection, Elie’s Father was chosen to...
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...Discuss the relationship Wiesel has with God throughout Night. Eliezer Wiesel presents the Jewish faith in a moment of extreme darkness however, what gives him the courage and strength to continue to live is his connection with religion and his relationship with God. Initially Elie shows strong devotion, then becomes disillusioned with God’s power, and ultimately redefines the position God holds in his life. In the beginning, Elie Wiesel’s relationship with God in Night shows strong devotion. Wiesel made spirituality inherent to all activities, wished to spend his life focused around Judaism, and devoted all his free time and energy on religious studies. Wiesel believed that religion was a basic survival need, showing that he followed his religion instinctively. When asked why he prayed, Wiesel couldn’t think of a proper answer and thought, “…strange question, why did I live, why did I breathe?”. Wiesel maintained confidence in religion as the situation deteriorated. Wiesel and his people gave thanks to God for survival, keeping hope that God was putting them through a test of hardships what would keep them alive if they kept their faith. When they had arrived at Auschwitz, they thanked God and were able to regain their confidence because, “Here was a sudden release from the terrors of the previous nights”. Wiesel thanked God for the little things that helped him because he wanted a sense of protection and clung to the belief that God watched over them and helped them survive...
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...The book, “Night” by Elie Wiesel is a first person person narrative of Wiesel’s time in Auschwitz, the obstacles he has to surpass and the sacrifices he has to make in order to stay alive and how his faith waivers as his desperation to survive increases. As one of the millions of Jew-ish survivors of the Holocaust, Wiesel shares his personal story from his point of view bringing the themes of faith and desperation to surface. The desperation to survive changes Wiesel’s be-lief in God from one of unquestioning faith to a cynical more callous view. As the book unfolds these two themes present themselves and are tied to the storyline and Wiesel’s disposition and mental state. Throughout the book, Wiesel often talks about his faith and how...
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...religious are close with God and deny questioning His Being. Wiesel was one of the Jews who survived the Holocaust during World War ll. Wiesel’s identity of God changed during his experience in Auschwitz due to the harsh conditions faced. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel the major theme throughout the whole story is that people struggle to maintain any sort of faith in god when faced with extreme struggles. The greatest change to Elie Wiesel’s identity was his loss of faith in God. Before leaving with his family to the camps, Elie was very religious person he would cry after praying at night. When the German police came to take the Jews to the ghettos, they pulled Elie from his prayer. Elie thanks God when he was told he is...
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...Wallace English 1302 29 November 2013 Losing Faith There were a lot of Jewish people who had a large faith in humanity or in what we all called God and Elie Wiesel was one of them. Their faith in humanity ended up being lost during the second Great War, which is commonly known as War World II. Though, after the war and after they were saved by the Allies, little by little their faith in humanity and God slowly came back. Even the truest believers, like Elie Wiesel, can lose their faith in all of humanity and even who they call God, but once you are shown even a slightest bit of kindness, you can gain it all back. In the very beginning of Elie Wiesel’s novel, Night, based off his experiences during the World War II, all he wanted was someone to help him in his studies of the Kabbalah. Even though his father thought him to be too young that did not stop Elie from pursuing his dreams. He ended up finding a teacher for his studies of the Kabbalah in Moishe the Beadle. Elie was not the only Jewish child whose studies meant a lot to him. David Weiss Halivini was another child who had big dreams and an even larger faith. He had a dream of being a rabbi of a small village in the Carpathian Mountains (Fox). Though he had to put his dreams on hold after the Germans came and put his family into the ghettos, just like Elie’s family. Also like Elie, he continued with his studies, not wanting to put his dreams on hold because he was moved into a ghetto. Not only did Jewish families have a strong...
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...during an evil historic event like the Holocaust? Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, will answer this question. Throughout history humanity has faced numerous tragic event caused either by nature or human beings, both of God’s creations. The Holocaust, which means “sacrifice by fire”, began in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. During the Holocaust the Jews were the most affected. The Nazis killed eleven million Jews, almost two-thirds of all the Jewish population living in Europe. Jews were not the only ones the Holocaust targeted; Gypsies, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were also victims of Hitler’s plan. In recent years, events like The Twin Towers terrorist attack in 2001 and the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami have brought enormous suffering to the world, suffering that can somehow be compared to the one lived during the Holocaust. Continuing is the analysis of Elie Wiesel’s horrific experiences during the Holocaust. Did these experiences affect his faith? Was his perception of humanity ideas impacted? The book Night starts describing Elie’s faith as one indestructible. As young as he was he had deep knowledge of Jewish mysticism studies. Elie believed in God; a God of love and unlimited power. He was told that God is the master creator of all world’s wonders and that these wonders where the emanation of the divine world. Elie concluded that if God was the creator of everything in the physical world and God is a God of love then the world should be a reflection of...
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...Wiesel’s Changes of Faith The Holocaust brought about many hardships and created severe adversity for its victims that may have created experiences ultimately too traumatic that transformed their lives for years to come, either through starvation and labor in the concentration camps or execution and incineration in the extermination camps. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel tells the story of himself as a young Jewish boy born in Romania, who in 1944, was forced into ghettos with the rest of the Jewish citizens and later deported, along with his father, to the Nazi’s largest killing center, Auschwitz-Birkenau. While living through this day-to-day horrifying basis, Elie begins to live with overwhelming fear and total alienation, as well as his increasing loss of faith on God and whether God is even existent or not for His lack of participation in trying to help the Jews. Although Elie manages to survive his long and frightening journey through both labor and death camps, his faith was never at the high-most air-reaching level as it dramatically changed throughout the course of the novel because of his disturbing experiences in witnessing cremated human beings, executions, and the going through the loss of his entire family. Prior to being deported to the camps, Elie’s faith was extremely high as he was well-established with his studies in mysticism and the cabbala and his great involvement with religion through prayers. Elie is finding a great interest in wanting to...
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...do the seemingly impossible and defy death, for a little longer. Hope is key to surviving in any situation, but it takes a lot of emotional strength to maintain. During the Holocaust, this was truer than ever for millions of people, who faced death every day, and were tortured, starved, and violated. Their hope in religion, the goodness of humanity, and themselves were continually tested and most victims’ hope were eventually lost because of their suffering. One survivor, Elie Wiesel, wrote a memoir, Night, sharing his experiences during the Holocaust and in a concentration camp, and solemnly displaying his progression of hope. Elie's gradual loss of hope caused him to lose the emotional strength that he needs to survive, which made him desperate to cling on to the familial identity that was...
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...tradition, territory, and in this case, the idea that one race is superior to another. World War II was a horrible time in the world. The First World War was “the war to end all wars” and yet chaos spread over Europe. Elie Wiesel’s story, Night, is no exception. Elie was a Jewish prisoner who escaped the Nazi death camps. Night redefines what a common theme of man’s inhumanity to man. This theme is shown through the murder of a young boy, Elie’s belief in God, and Elie’s self-worth. The first display of Nazi inhumanity is the murder of a young child. An man and the boy (his assistant) were accused of blowing up a power plant on the camp. The man and boy were tortured and questioned and refused to give any information about the incident to the Nazi soldiers. The boy was described as “having the face of a sad angel” and was sentenced to be hanged. Everyone at the camp liked him and the SS officer in charge of the hanging refused his job and was replaced. The child was so light he hung for half and hour before actually dying. The prisoners had never cried for a victim before, however, they cried for the boy. One man asked “Where is God now?”. These are just a few of the instances that may or may not have been fabricated for Elie Wiesel’s story, quite unfortunately it has been an issue in history related to the Holocaust that, many people deny the full scope of what historians say. Elie’s...
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...happiness, your own life; and once it is gone, it is lost, and good luck trying to find it. Sayonara, au revoir, adios, bye. Elie Wiesel’s Night deals with his loss of faith in his God. Wiesel’s problem can be root all the way back to 1942, the beginning of Elie’s awakening, his first insight into the real world, his first insight into the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a horrid event, of ruthless killing, of senseless slaughter, destroying families, and a whirlwind of destruction. Under strain, ones happiness and ones faith is slowly whittled under the knife of opposition and pressure. Elie has lost so much through out his life, losing his family, his friends, but most importantly his faith. The first example of Elie loosing his faith is when he arrived at Auschwitz, Elie and his father are directed to go to the left; a prisoner then informs them that they are on their way to the crematory, Elie’s father recites the Kaddish or prayer for the dead, revolt rises up inside of Elie and he questions God, “Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for? (Wiesel 31)”. Elie is hopeless, his situation rendering him of his beliefs unable to believe that a holy being could cause such grief. He was stricken with terror that even after his prayers, his deep devotion to the great “lord” that God has thrust him into this “hell”. Another example of prisoners in the concentration camp loosing their faith in Night...
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...Elie Wiesel’s Loss of Innocence There comes a time in one’s life where a tragic event results in the loss of innocence and an increase in knowledge. Unfortunately this is one of life’s few promises. Some experience this ablution a lot sooner than they should. In children who survived the holocaust in concentration camps, their innocence was taken as soon as their ordinary everyday life was imposed upon by the Nazis. In Elie Wiesel’s book Night, he describes himself as an innocent teenager, a child whose innocence was taken from him as the result of the nefariousness performed by the Nazis in World War Two. Elie and his family were transported to Birkenau where his family was torn apart, leaving him with his father, his sisters and his mother. Once they were separated, he began to slowly lose his innocence. Towards the end of 1941, in the small village of Sighet, Hungary, twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel spent most of his time studying the Talmud. Elie was one of four children born to his mother and father. Hilda was the eldest, then Bea, he was the third, and Tzipora was the youngest. The two eldest sisters helped the parents run the family store while Elie stayed home to study. Elie was very passionate about the theology of his religion, Judaism. He studied Talmud by day and by night he would go to the synagogue to pray. One of his main interests was Kabbalah which is an aspect of Jewish mysticism. Elie asked his father to find him a master to guide him in his...
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...good and a loss of faith in a God he thought just." Be sure to answer both parts of the prompt. The central theme of Elie Wiesel’s writing “Night” is a boy's loss of innocence in a world he thought good and a loss of faith in a God he thought just. Throughout the book, Wiesel encounters numerous situations that put him through a mix of emotions that lead him to change his belief that God is just. Originally Elie had full trust in God, shown by his devout prayers to God and his devoted study of the Talmud and Kabbalah. But over time his horrific experiences during the Holocaust started to influence his beliefs. He says in his first night at Auschwitz, “Never shall I forget...
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...Elie Wiesel struggles with his faith in God throughout his experiences in the concentration camp. Before all of his experiences with the concentration Elie had complete belief in god, he studied Kabballah and had a teacher. Although, when he arrives at the concentration camps and sees people get beat, put in the crematorium, separated from their families, and plentiful other he begins to question Gods purposes. He comes back to partaking belief in God after the concentration camps had ended and he could take a reflection of all of the atrocious events that he went through. Elies Wiesel’s faith in God fluctuates in the memoir Night. Initially, he has complete faith while studying Kabbalah, but as he sees horrendous events taking place Auschwitz he struggles to maintain belief in God and finally regains faith after a time of reflection. Previous to the concentration camps, when Jews belonged in their own community, Elie enjoyed to study Kabbalah. Elie had no doubts in God, studying the Jewish texts of Kabbalah interested him. “He wanted to drive the idea of studying Kabbalah from my mind. In vain, I succeeded on...
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...Change is inevitable. It is something that is bound to happen no matter what the outcome.In the novel night, Elie Wiesel’s character goes on a journey that will forever change his life and many situations around them. People go from living in a house to being forced and killed in a concentration camp. No one can predict what the outcome will be because the possibilities of life and death are endless. Elie Wiesel changes his religious beliefs because he lost faith and his religious beliefs couldn't save him from. In the beginning of the article many of the jews were prominent in their religious views. I continued to devote myself to my studies, Talmud during the day and Kabbalah at night (Wiesel 8). Talmud is a body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law and legend. The purpose of the talmud is to project writings that are often ventured onto other subjects broadly on the Hebrew Bible. The Kabbalah is one of the main forms of their Jewish religion that is seen throughout the book. He wanted to drive the idea of studying Kabbalah from my mind (Wiesel 4). In the novel Elie’s dad doesn’t want...
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...- Describe and analyze Elie Wiesel’s changing view of god throughout the memoir and how it affected his identity. Explain three specific examples of this transformation from Elies experience beginning in sighet to his liberation at Buchenwald. NIGHT As humans we all have certain characteristics that define us. What we look like, what we do, what music we listen to, and even our religious beliefs. All of these make up our identity. Sometimes we feel like our identity is altered because of an event that has occurred. It may be positive or negative, for example if we start doubting our faith it changes our beliefs and our beliefs are a big part of who we are. In the book night Elie Wiesel starts off with an influential belief in God. Elie experiences many situations that change the way he views God slowly transforming his identity as he continues to go through many atrocities in the concentration camps. For instance, when Elie first arrived at the camp he immediately starts doubting God as he asks himself “Why should I bless his name? What had I to thank him for? (page 42) At this point in time Elie was...
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