...that good night,” but to “rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Thomas, 1 and 3). Thomas hoped that his father would find the strength to not give up in his fight for life. Their familial love gave his father the hope to 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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...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 is when the Pipel, a young child...
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...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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...I believe that the story “Night” shows us a multitude of angles on which people lived during the holocaust. Though I do not belive that in these times that human kindness prevailed, often prisoners would kill for food or drink, and many people turned a blind eye to the actions in Germany. The history of the world is plagued by mankind’s inability to settle for what they have and who they are. Wars have been fought over religion, 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...
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...Night Essay Night is a very familiar concept for all people. It is a period of time in which the sun has moved to a different part of the world, thus darkness ensues. Humans use this part of the “day” to sleep, or to do other things that otherwise could not be done during the day. Night is also very symbolic; it is darker, colder, harsher, and lonelier than the day. People often associate night with fear, for their fears can more likely be realized as night. Elie Wiesel’s title for the book is appropriate because of the things that happened in the camp. First, unimaginable horrors took place during World War 2. To be more specific, things that we cannot imagine took place in concentration camps, and that is where the novel takes place. Wiesel...
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...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 him, a world of good. Unfortunately...
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...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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...boy's loss of innocence in a world he thought 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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...In 1986, Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights activism and campaigns against worldwide genocide and violence. In his acceptance speech, Wiesel said “When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe”. Wiesel found himself a target of the Nazi “Final Solution” while still only a teenager. Confined first to ghettos, Wiesel along with his whole family were then deported to the death camps at Auschwitz in 1944. The tough labor, the gruesome beatings along with the terrible conditions of Auschwitz...
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...many influential quotes Elie Wiesel has stated. Elie Wiesel is a nobel peace prize winner and has written dozens of fiction and nonfiction, addressing and crusaded against abuse and intolerance around the world inspired by his dreadful times in the Holocaust, including “Night”. In the book, Elie was only 15 when he and his family were taken and separated in Auschwitz because they were Jews. Throughout Auschwitz Elie experiences many horrid events that forever changed and shaped him into who he is today. and In the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, was effected by the events in the book because he lost his faith, gave up on humanity, and was physiological changed. Throughout Elie’s experiences during his time spent at Auschwitz, he started to lose his faith in God. Elie started to rebel and question God. Elie Wiesel stated in the text “Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled” (Page 67). Elie clearly had lost his faith. The thought of rebelling occurred after so many people died having no power. “He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves?...Kept six crematoria working day and night… had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many factories of death?” Elie also implies on page 67. Elie had heart-provoking thoughts occuring on how people could never worship the Lord and believe...
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...Life Lessons in the Face of Death “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest” (Wiesel 1986). Of all the people that could have proclaimed this, Elie Wiesel is among the most qualified. As a jew held in several different concentration camps during World WarⅡ, injustice is all he faces; but he never surrenders to the twisted forces acting upon him. Elie Wiesel expresses the lessons of justice versus apathy, decision making, and judgment in the struggles of religious scrutiny and concentration camps in his memoir Night. The largest obstacle faced by jews during World WarⅡis injustice. People are excellent at being apathetic, but it does no help at the gate of God-the jews’ destination in sight. When being apathetic rather than just, you become emotionally driven rather than spiritually led. Moishe the Beadle told of all the horrible things happening to jews, and it passed off as no big deal as people figured that Moishe was crazy. Even Elie, being a close friend of his, could not wrap his mind around what...
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...Billy Lynch Ms. Pound English II PreAP/Block 7 14 May 2018 Rhetorical Analysis;“Elie Wiesel’s Acceptance Speech for the Nobel Peace Prize” Author and human rights activist Elie Wiesel, in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, discusses the nature of human injustice and its impact on his life and humanity as a whole. He adopts a forthright and heartfelt tone throughout his speech in order to gain support from his audience. Wiesel's purpose is to convince the audience to unite against injustice and human rights violations. In the beginning of the speech, Wiesel’s intention is to remind the audience of the scale and inhumanity of the Jewish genocide and to establish his own personal experiences with it. When presented with the Nobel Peace Prize, Wiesel asks a hypophora “do I have the right to accept this great honor on their behalf? I do not”. He includes this in order to establish a sense of humility with his audience so the case he presents is much more convincing to them. This...
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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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...event had. Elie Wiesel -- now a Nobel-Prize winning author, humanities professor, and Judaic studies professor at schools such as NYU, Boston University, and City University. Wiesel resided in Romania during the Holocaust and was sent to Auschwitz in Poland. Luckily, he and two of his sisters survived this traumatic experience, but, they will forever have the malicious, knavish, and despicable memories forever. Holden Caulfield, the main character of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, does not reveal much information about...
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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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