...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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...Would you ignore if six million people were assassinated? The historical background of Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, has experienced such a significant event. Wiesel is an Auschwitz survivor and his memoir, Night, reflects the society and the beliefs of its time. A controversy about this work is that some people believe the Holocaust never happened and as a result regard the book as false. However, this novel was important at the time it was written, because it was a time when people didn‘t believe in the Holocaust. In addition, Elie Wiesel’s background is essential to the Holocaust’s memory, because it deals with the Nazi’s genocide. The author of Night, who is also the protagonist of the book, shows how delusion and rumors spread false hopes and lies throughout the camp. The author also showed how Hitler’s belief that other races were inferior and didn’t deserve to live led to Hitler’ rise to power. Wiesel’s story is crucial to that time-period since it shows his perseverance through multiple concentration camps and the loss of close family members....
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...In the book Night Elie Wiesel has a strong faith in God at the beginning of the book.Wiesel has developed this faith by his studies in mysticism and Kabbalah he seems very eager to learn more . For instance, on page four he says “One day I asked my father to find me a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah. ‘You are too young for that. Maimonides tells us that one must be thirty before venturing into the world of mysticism.’”Wiesel’s loss of confidence in God who he once strongly believed in is thanks to the inhumane way people were treated, his lack of basic life necessities, and all the losses Wiesel experienced during the camp and the Holocaust in general. One reason Wiesel lost faith was because he did not believe...
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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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...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 the challenges he faced. When Wiesel’s new shoes get covered in mud and are not discovered by the SS Guards, he “thanked God, in an improvised prayer, for having...
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...subconscious, but instead Elie Wiesel took the liberty of writing Night, which is a memoir that valiantly recounts his experience as a Holocaust survivor. His autobiographical account of the concentration camps grimly illustrates the agony felt by the victims and exposes to the public how the actions of the Nazi regime would mentally, physically, and emotionally affect the...
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...Reading night really helped me open my eyes to the reality of the Holocaust, learning about Elie Wiesel's story changed my perspective from numbers to experiences. The amount of suffering and misery Elie and millions of other went through is unbelievable to me and truly something I admire. The vow Elie took to not publicly speak about what happened to him for 10 years is valiant, and to write is to relive each moment of those painful memories. After surviving 5 concentration camps and losing his family, faith and most importantly his identity and...
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...Author: Elie Wiesel Date of Publication: 1958 Genre: autobiography, memoir Historical information about period of publication: World War II, and the Holocaust, ended in April 1945 when the liberating Allied armies came through the conquered territories in Nazi Europe. Night describes 16 year old Elie’s loss of faith in God, humanity, family and morality in general. Elie, therefore, vowed to not speak of his experience in Auschwitz, Buna or Buchenwald (or any event between 1943 and 1945, from the beginning of the occupation of Hungary to Germany’s liberation in 1945) for ten years, until he had time to internalize this dramatic loss, and regain his faith and possession of his memory and life. In 1954, after realizing that even less than ten years after the end of the Holocaust, the world was already forgetting and Jews were abandoning their roots, the time had come to testify and justify to the world that Hitler had not succeeded. Biographical Information about the author: Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet Romania, where his memoir Night begins. In his childhood (up to the Nazi occupation of Romania) his father encouraged his study of the Torah, other Judaic texts and other literary works. As described in the beginning of Night, Elie was also curious about the realm of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. From 1944 to 1945, Elie and his family were subjected to the Nazi terror (will be described in the plot summary section). Elie and two of...
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...After Elie Wiesel and his father are resettled to Buna, he experiences two hangings. The first of which is as a result of thievery during the recent air raid, and the Germans are not appeased. During an atypical roll call, the Germans bring to the attention of the prisoners that the defiant’s consequential death should serve as a reminder. Elie writes, “The Kapo wanted to blindfold the youth, but he refused. After what seemed like a long moment, . . . when the latter shouted, in a strong and calm voice: ‘Long live liberty! My curse on Germany! My curse! My—’” (Wiesel 62). The young man that is hung on the gallows, indubitably, meets his end with denial and hatred—both of which are obvious through audible action. However, why does Elie seemingly rejoice as he is later consuming his ration? Clearly, it is due to a lack of relevance and, in Elie’s perception, is also what the man deserves. Indubitably, Wiesel’s incorporation of the lack of silence only substantiates the...
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...perished in the persecution by the Germans during the atrocity of the Holocaust, with only a fraction of the population fortunate enough to survive through the brutal concentration camps that the Nazi Regime forced them to undergo. In such a barbarous time in history, the preservation of strong faith is what people thought would help them to endure through the dark times and give them hope. However, it was nearly impossible to trust God and His plan when the ground around the prisoners assumed the role of a graveyard and the living struggled to survive through the night. Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust and prisoner of multiple concentration camps in Europe, wrote the memoir Night about his unimaginable suffering during...
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...beliefs. Elie Wiesel in his novel Night, a novel about Wiesel’s life during Holocaust, displayed many of these bonds. Wiesel documented people’s bonds with their Jewish faith to stay alive for the majority of those who suffered through the holocaust were Jews. He told of bonds to oneself to stay alive although quite selfish. Finally, Wiesel utilized the close relationships between family members to argue that family bonds give individuals a reason to live. Wiesel first proves that family bonds help individuals survive by showing the father son relationship between Elie’s father and himself. This is seen throughout the entire novel. It is seen when they reassure each other that Elie’s mom and Tzipora, his sister, will be alright as they are separated. They are being sent to certain death but Elie and his father try and comfort each other so that they do not breakdown and basically die at the loss of their family members. Another instance of the family bond saving one of their lives is when they were on the train cars going to Buchenwald. The Nazi’s had just shouted to drop all the dead into the snow. Two men came to take Elie’s father for he looked dead, but Elie saved him saying “’No’ I cried ‘he isn’t dead! Not yet!’… He was breathing weakly. ‘You see…’” (Wiesel 94). This clearly shows that because of Elie’s family bond with his father made him save his father’s life by shouting to the two men to leave his dad. A final instance of the connection between Elie and his...
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...The Perils of Indifference or Night Elie Wiesel, he made a speech, Perils of Indifference and a book called, Night. Both of these had made huge impacts on the world around us. They informed us of what had happened during Wiesel’s time in the concentration camps and how indifference had affected us all when we could have acted to try and stop the Nazis sooner. America's largest corporations had even still given them the fuel and resources they had needed to continue. If we weren’t indifferent couldn’t we have stopped this from happened in the first place? But, which of these, his speech or the book, holds the most influencing power? Which could make people reflect on what had happened or make them want to learn more? The book has so many layers and layers of knowledge and meanings that even though it's small in pages its power is as strong as if he was sitting with you and saying it personally. Or the speech, which gave a clear and meaningful meaning on indifference and so much more? I feel that the book gave me a much deeper understanding than the speech did, though they both had their greatest points and had...
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...Night by Elie Wiesel is a novel of post-Holocaust literature. It is a story about a Jewish man and his family and of the unspeakable horrors that they endured during World War II. Night is a retelling of a terrible story, everything that leads to Wiesel and his family entering Auschwitz, the most notorious death camp to this day, and the aftermath of liberation. Night is an incredibly well written novel. It twines together the power of fear and the loss of faith. It touches on how humanity changes in the face of power and oppression. This novel is able to not only testify, but discuss the atrocities of events that are not easily spoken about. Wiesel manages to takes many difficult subjects like murder, religion, and false hope and force people...
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...rights and freedoms all human beings are obliged to have. Additionally, it states that human rights are to be enjoyed by all people, regardless of who they are or where they live; while also including civil and political rights such as the right to live, freedom of speech, and privacy. In Elie Wiesel’s Night, Wiesel shares an impeccable account and the overlying theme of the dehumanizing macabre that is referred to as the Holocaust- particularly the idea that if one is treated as subhuman, death overrules innocence, the fight for survival results the loss of feelings, and extreme starvation outweighs all....
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...Ryan Hutchinson When living is making life hell just keep on moving forward. In the book, Night by Elie Wiesel, he writes about his catastrophic experiences as a child going through and handling the absurd actions of Hitler and his Nazi Army. He explains his experience through all of it from moving from his house to another ghetto, to going to the concentration camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald. At just thirteen this was a life altering and extremely tragic event that occurred in his young life. Through all this his faith in humanity and God are tested, in which is very clear how it changed throughout the book. The book opens with the Wiesel family, a loving family, in their apartment in the Jewish city of Sighet, where they were going about their everyday busy happily. Without any knowledge at all the German and Nazi Army entered into the city, and formed two different ghettos and pilled the members of the Jewish faith into them. Luckily for the Wiesel family the ghetto was formed within the grounds of where their apartment was, so they were able to stay in their home. This was only until they moved everyone out of this ghetto and into the one and last ghetto in the city. While in these ghettos Elie witnessed a lot of horrific incidents, which will forever be imprinted into his memory. These incidents that were so gruesome and horrible that they literally effected how he thought of humanity and his faith in God. He was so scarred from these events that he was so confused on...
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