... Research Paper 1 The Holocaust In this paper, I will be presenting many facts that show what the Holocaust is and why it occurred. The Holocaust was an organized, persecution, and murder of approximately six million Jewish people including 1.5 million Jewish children. The Holocaust took place in Europe by the Nazi regime and its collaborators that happened between 1933-1945. During that time, Jews were known as an inferior race. They were thought to be a threat to the German community. After years of having the Nazis rule in Germany, Hitler decided his “final solution”. This solution included mass killing centers constructed in the concentration camps of Poland. In the article “Elie Wiesel Biography” by The Biography.com, the author’s main thesis is that the Holocaust was a very traumatic event that caused an eye-opener for humans about how cruel humans can be. This article talks about Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor who is now a Nobel-Prize winning writer, teacher and activist known for the memoir Night. In his books he discusses his experiences of surviving the Holocaust. At the age of 15, Wiesel and his entire family were sent to Auschwitz as part of the Holocaust (Eliezer Wiesel, 2014). Elie and his father were separated from his mother and younger sister and taken...
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...during the Holocaust, the mass murder of millions of people leading up to and during WWII. For example, at the beginning of the novel the Jewish community of Sighet is forced to evacuate from their homes. Later they are forced to sit crowded together in wagons that have no space to move around in. A Nazi officer said to them, “‘There are eighty of you in this wagon,’ added the German officer. ‘If anyone is missing, you’ll all be shot, like dogs...’” (Wiesel 24). This quote shows the...
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...Eliezer is more than just a traditional protagonist; his direct experience is the entire substance of Night. He tells his story in a highly subjective, first-person, autobiographical voice, and, as a result, we get an intimate, personal account of the Holocaust through direct descriptive language. Whereas many books about the Holocaust use a generalized historical or epic perspective to paint a broad picture of the period, Eliezer’s account is limited in scope but gives a personal perspective through which the reader receives a harrowingly intimate description of life under the Nazis. First and foremost, it is important to differentiate between the author of Night, Elie Wiesel, and its narrator and protagonist, Eliezer. That a distinction can...
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...The book Night by Elie Wiesel is a story about the Jews during the time when the Germans were trying to rid the world of all the imperfect people. The biggest group of people they were trying to get rid of was the Jews. There were many different reactions from the survivors/victims of the Holocaust. I know if it was me that was caught up in a disaster the scope of the Holocaust that I would have many different feelings and reactions. I know a few people who have suffered a personal tragedy, me included. In some ways there are similarities to Night whereas some of it is not. Some people say that the Holocaust should be seen as different in kind from the tragedies common to human life. A good question to ask oneself is, how great of a tragedy would it take to lead you to question the goodness of God? As the story of Night develops Eliezer’s understanding of God changes. Eliezer’s relationship with his father changes as the story progresses. Some might say this change is related to his understanding of God. His reaction to his father’s death is different than how most people would react. The scene at the mirror at the end of the story suggests that something happened to Eliezer during the story. Wiesel makes the remark “man questions God” which has a suggestion on Judaism’s attitude toward God. I believe that it is ironic in light of the story. The story of Night suggests that there is a problem with being a survivor. Some people believe that Wiesel was justified in his change of...
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...darkness, leaving behind only unease and uncertainty. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, night symbolizes the suffering of Eliezer in the nightmarish Holocaust which he lived through. During the hours of darkness, Eliezer experiences uncertainty in his ever-evolving situation, fear during his sleepless nights, and loss of those that he cares for. During the Holocaust, Jewish people are forced from their homes, forced from camp to camp, and forced to change against their will. Eliezer and his family anticipate their departure from the ghettos into the lethal uncertainty of this war against them. Eliezer’s mother instructs her children to “go to bed early [and] conserve [their] strength… [as] it was to be the last night spent in [their] house” (Wiesel 18). The night is expected to be a time of rest and rejuvenation; however, the nights proceeding a change are stressful and often represent the fleeting moments of security and consistency in their lives. Even when Eliezer spends his last night in Buna, he is fearful. He knows a change is approaching and despite his horrific circumstances, Eliezer knows it...
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...brutality created by the Holocaust tore relationships between children and parents. In the two novels Night and Sarah’s Key the two main characters, Sarah Starzynski and Elie Wiesel, suffer through the Holocaust, which impacts their relationship with their parents and their close connections are affected by death and torture in the death camps. Sarah Starzynski starts out with a wonderful life in France, but soon is rounded up in the Vel d'Hiv and sent to a death camp with her family. Likewise, Elie Wiesel, is a religious teenager, that is taken away to the Auschwitz death camp where he struggles to survive. To begin with, Sarah was a young Jewish girl, around eleven, with blond hair and was protective of her little brother, Michael whom she locked in a cup board in order to protect him from the police. Before the Holocaust, Sarah asserted that, “ She was safe, with her mother, with her father.” ( Rosnay, 19)This statement suggests that Sarah was just an innocent, and clueless girl before the Holocaust which made her relay on her parents more. Thus, the close connection between Sarah and her parents was still strong because of Sarah’s...
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... One of the Axis’s leaders was Adolf Hitler. Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Germany. The Jews were hated the most by the Nazis because Hitler blamed the Jews from Germany defeat in World War I. This hate towards the Jews from Hitler led to “The Holocaust”. The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Even though we know millions of people died in this sadly event, many people survived, as well. Many years after the Holocaust one of the survivors Elie Wiesel wrote his book Night telling his life story in the Holocaust. Wiesel was the first to give the name "Holocaust", which literally means destruction by fire, to the experience of European Jews in World War II. Elie Wiesel was a Jewish from northern Transylvania annexed by Hungary. Wiesel started the most difficult journey of his life when Nazi German forces took him and his family to the concentration camps. Night is basically about Eliezer struggles with his father throughout the Holocaust and how Eliezer managed to survived. Wiesel narrates in his book Night his experience in the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945 at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War. Some of the most important sceneries in the book are the Sighet Ghettos, Aushwitz, Death March, Buchenwald and Liberation. First, everything began when he was 15 years old and German forces...
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...Author: Elie Wiesel Night “One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on then opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me. (Wiesel 109)” This is Eliezer’s final statement at the end of the intriguing and heartbreaking book Night by Eli Wiesel. A boy named Eliezer, who represents Elie, narrates Night, but details set apart the character Eliezer from the real life Elie. Despite warnings about German intentions towards Jews, Eliezer, a Jewish teenage boy, his family and the other Jews in the small Transylvanian town of Sighet (now in modern-day Romania) fail to flee the country when they have a chance. As a result, the entire Jewish population is sent to concentration camps. There, in a camp called Auschwitz, Eliezer is separated from his mother and younger sister, but remains with his father. As Eliezer struggles to survive against starvation and abuse, he also grapples with the destruction of his faith in God’s justice and battles with the darker sides of himself. Forced into a desperate situation, Eliezer feels a conflict between supporting his ever-weakening father and giving himself the best chance of survival. Over the course of the book, Eliezer and his father are sent from Auschwitz to a new concentration camp called Buna and then, as the Allies (the British and...
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...Historical Background on Night and Eliezer Wiesel In Sighet, Transylvania on September 30,1928 a Holocaust survivor was born. Eliezer Wiesel who is 85 years old, grew up with three siblings, all girls. Shlomo, Elie’s father was a shopkeeper. When he was 15 Elie and his family were forced to a concentration camp. Wiesel's parents died and so did one of his sisters. When Elie was freed from camp Buchenwald in 1945, he went and studied in France three years later. His friend, Francois mauriac, later convinced him to write about the events and his story about what all happened in those camps. Wiesel is a writer and a world activist. He has written plenty of books including: The Oath, The Gates of the forest, and Town of Luck. Eliezer is also...
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...In history, we are taught about genocides and the impact it had on people’s lives. It is hard to understand how a group of people can be hated by the way they look, live, and their beliefs. One of the most well-known genocide was the Holocaust. The Holocaust took was the period between 1933 and 1945 when Nazi Germany systematically persecuted and murdered millions of Jews and other innocent people (people of the Holocaust). Many had post-traumatic stress disorder and found it hard to live after such traumatic events. Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor who was fortunate enough to use writing as a way to express the thoughts and feelings many Jewish people experienced during World War II in hiss Night Trilogy. Elie Wiesel was born...
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...he book Night by Elie Wiesel is a story about the Jews during the time when the Germans were trying to rid the world of all the imperfect people. The biggest group of people they were trying to get rid of was the Jews. There were many different reactions from the survivors/victims of the Holocaust. I know if it was me that was caught up in a disaster the scope of the Holocaust that I would have many different feelings and reactions. I know a few people who have suffered a personal tragedy, me included. In some ways there are similarities to Night whereas some of it is not. Some people say that the Holocaust should be seen as different in kind from the tragedies common to human life. A good question to ask oneself is, how great of a tragedy would it take to lead you to question the goodness of God? As the story of Night develops Eliezer’s understanding of God changes. Eliezer’s relationship with his father changes as the story progresses. Some might say this change is related to his understanding of God. His reaction to his father’s death is different than how most people would react. The scene at the mirror at the end of the story suggests that something happened to Eliezer during the story. Wiesel makes the remark “man questions God” which has a suggestion on Judaism’s attitude toward God. I believe that it is ironic in light of the story. The story of Night suggests that there is a problem with being a survivor. Some people believe that Wiesel was justified in his change of...
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...Night is a memoir written by Elie Wiesel about the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust. Night is also an autobiography account of a recollection of the Holocaust through the eyes of survivor, Elie Wiesel. He takes his readers with him from his home and beyond. After reading this book, readers will have a deeper understanding of the holocaust. “FEAR WAS GREATER THAN HUNGER” (59) Wiesel takes the reader through the events of the day. Half the group, his father among them, were at work. The group Eliezer was in stayed behind and was resting when the bombing started. All inmates were confined to their blocks. Almost in slow motion, Wiesel describes how one prisoner crawled on his belly through the deserted street to a cauldron of soup that stood unguarded in the roadway. The other prisoners look on with fear and envy, all of them consumed with hunger, at the man risking his life in quest of a little soup. When the famished man finally manages to pull himself to his feet and reaches into the cauldron, he is shot and falls dead beside it. Wiesel notes that, despite the danger to themselves from the bombing, the inmates were not afraid but glad to see the camp being bombed. “Fear was greater than hunger” this man showed mutiny and rebellion towards the SS officers just so he could survive , he put himself in danger in order to live this reason is why everyone-including the SS officers watches in disbelief as one man who dared committed suicide for a ration or two more of soup...
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...Elie Wiesel was born in 1928, in the town of Sighet, now part of Romania. During World War II, he, with his family and other Jews from the area, were deported to the German concentration and extermination camps, where his parents and little sister perished. Wiesel and his two older sisters survived. Night, narrated by Eliezer Wiesel, chronicles his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust. His family is deported from Hungary, brought to Auschwitz, and experiences starvation, abuse, and death. In the preface of Night, Ellie explains. “And those words are: For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are also responsible for what we are doing with those memories.” After reviewing...
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...“Not to transmit an experience is to betray it” (Wiesel). In other words, experiencing something bad or even good and to not share it with someone is as if it never happened. This is an appropriate statement for Elie Wiesel to use because it was his experience through the holocaust that caused him to become a successful writer with such works as Night. Eliezer Wiesel, known as Elie, was named after his grandfather who was killed while working as a stretcher-bearer during World War I. He was born on September 30, 1928 in the countryside of Seigh, Romania. Wiesel was a middle child and the only son to Sarah Feig and Shlomo Wiesel, a shopkeeper and a leader in his community. He had two older sisters, Hilda and Bea, and a younger one named Judith. Elie was a shy, thin thoughtful boy who never learned how to swim, preferred books to sports, and enjoyed playing chess. At an early age he was intimidated by classmates, so often he faked being sick so he could stay home. “Being an insecure youngster, Elie tried to bribe his classmates with...
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...People who are 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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