Elie Wiesel uses many factors to display the horrors that took place at Auschwitz, but his use of Judaism and faith are by far the most prevalent and, in my opinion, the most meaningful. His transition from an ultra-orthodox Jew to an Atheist in such a short time period showcases the amount of trauma and dehumanization caused in order to put in motion such an upheaval. Elie Wiesel begins his memoir by describing himself as, “deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.” (3) With this statement, he is trying to articulate that at this point in time, Eliezer’s life was mainly comprised of his faith. He spent every day diving into the literature of God, and every night mourning the loss of a sacred Jewish artifact, but that all changed when Eliezer was …show more content…
I concurred with Job! I was not denying his existence, but I doubted his absolute justice.” (45) With this statement Eliezer is displaying that he still holds the belief in God, but chooses to keep his silence just as Job did when everything was taken from him. He cannot comprehend how a self-proclaimed God of “justice” can allow for such a monstrosity to occur, but he still believes in God’s existence. Towards the end of Night, Eliezer realizes family members have abandoned each other for a greater chance at survival and mentions “this God in whom I no longer believed.” (91) He started as a young boy devoted and absorbed by his faith, but he has become a man with no religious belief in the slightest. What mattered most to him was completely reversed in two tremendously long years. His whole life has changed, and he has been remade, for better or for worse. In the original Yiddish version of Night, Elie Wiesel describes his horror ten years later as anti-Semitism begins to rise once again, and how a percentage the population begins to deny that the holocaust ever
The book Night by Elie Wiesel shows how suffering and witnessing the painful deaths of many innocent lives can be the cause of loss of faith in the benevolent god. This book is taken in a horrible, inhumane place called the Holocaust. It all started when Moshe the Beadle stopped talking about God after he had witnesses the massacre of Jews by the German Gestapo; at that time no one believed him but time would prove them wrong. When Elie witnesses the horror of the concentration camps and what they do to people especially children he feels as if his God has been murdered right before his eyes. In the camp he sees an atrocity after atrocity, death after death.
The eternal, lord of the universe, the all-powerful and terrible was silent..."(pg 31). Eliezer doesn't understand why God has left them and why all the terrible things are happening. We also see Eliezer at the beginning of the memoir being a family-oriented
Night by Elie Wiesel is a Holocaust memoir based around Elie’s experiences leading up to and in the months he spent in concentration camps when he was 15. Published in 1956, a decade after the Holocaust, it details the brutality of the Nazi’s and the horrors of man. The memoir reveals that even the most devoutly religious people may question their faith and feel abandoned by God during traumatic times. As a child at the beginning of the memoir, Elie is devoutly religious and a large portion of his life is centered around religion.
The book Night is an autobiography by Elie Wiesel, in which he describes his experiences living in Hitler’s Europe and surviving the Holocaust with his father. Elie is a Romanian Jew who grows up in Sighet, Hungary, around the time when Adolf Hitler begins cracking down upon Jews and other “undesirables”. He, along with his family and neighbors, is taken to a ghetto and then shortly after to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Wiesel and his father manage to pass the selection, and are subsequently transferred to Buna, Gleiwitz, and finally Buchenwald. Due to the trauma Elie experiences at the hands of the Nazis, he undergoes a profound transformation, losing faith, empathy, and humanity.
Wiesel and other Jews in the concentration camps had many warning of what was to come, especially from the previous survivors of the Nazi camps. In fact, the new arrivals, when they arrived in camp, were warned right away, by some older men, “‘You’ve had done better to have hanged yourselves where you were than come here. Didn’t you know what was in store for you at Auschwitz?... Do you see that chimney over there? …
January 30th, 1933 is a date that will forever haunt the minds of many people of our world today. The Holocaust, a massacre where Adolf Hitler's Nazi army deliberately killed millions of Jewish people. In this span of time until May 8th, 1945, hope was lost, humanity was broken, and the faith of the Jewish was twisted in their minds forever. Many different people approach their faith very differently from others. Whether someones faith is in someone or something, there seems to be a spark of hope when someone considers their will to live with that faith.
Such a reversal demonstrates how the experience of the Holocaust has upset Eliezer’s entire concept of the universe, especially his belief in a benevolent, or even just, God.
Do you believe that religion and faith in it can change the outcome of your circumstances? Does the thought of something else ever cross your mind when severely challenged? In the memoir Night, Ellie Wiesel tells a story of his childhood going through World War 2 and specifically the effect on him from the Nazi regime. Night tells how he ventures from his hometown with his family and then is forced into concentration camps like Auschwitz and Birkenau where he is subjected to horrible and dehumanizing conditions. In this writing, we will be supporting the idea that Views and Faith in religion can change drastically when tested in trying situations.
Throughout the book “Night”, Elie battles with his faith and at times almost gives it up. Eliezer’s struggle with his faith is a dominant conflict in Night. Throughout the story, the holocaust proves that Elie’s faith is a necessary element for his survival. It preserves his sanity whether or not it is based in reality.
According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, faith is “belief and trust in God”(“Faith.”). This faith permeated young Elie Wiesel’s life before he and his family were sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust, and is an idea that is omnipresent throughout his novel, Night. As the novel opens, we see how absolutely devoted young Wiesel is to studying the Jewish religion. His belief in an omnipotent, benevolent God is unconditional, and he cannot imagine life without this divine power. He is eager, optimistic, and he even deviates from his father's recommendation by remaining in the synagogue after the others leave and he finds Moshe the Beadle to guide him in his studies.
The Holocaust was one of the worst things to ever happen in the civilization of mankind. The mass genocide resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jewish people all over Europe. During the Holocaust, the people that were not immediately executed were put into concentration camps. During the peoples’ time in the camps, their faith in Judaism was tested as some had an even deeper faith in their religion, meanwhile others lost all faith in God for allowing such things to happen to human beings. Richard L. Rubenstein wrote about how the people in the world lost faith in God and questioned religion as a whole.
When all hope is lost and it seems as if nothing mattered anymore, society is left with nothing but their family, faith and the unknown future. As the Jews of the Holocaust experienced the horrid acts of humanity, many were stripped of their true identity and fought for survival, abandoning their connection with family and faith. One of the Jews, Elie Wiesel, survived the horrors to retell his testimony of how the concentration camps wiped him of his faith, leaving only his father and a bitter, yet life-changing journey. Throughout Elie Wiesel’s novel, Wiesel has an unbreakable bond with his faith but has a distant connection to his father, yet after experiencing the horrors of Auschwitz, his faith deteriorates while he grows closer to his
Belief and Faith is a “double-edged sword” to the jews, it cuts both ways. It keeps them alive, and at the same time makes them oblivious, and leads to their suffering. Over time, Elie’s belief in god, diminishes and eventually he questions God’s existence extensively and at point, Elie is infuriated that even though they are being tormented and enslaved, the Jews will still pray to god, and thank him, “If god did exist, why would he let u go through all the pain and suffering (33). This is a major point in the ongoing theme of faith and belief, because for once he is infuriated with the thought of religion in a time of suffering. Throughout the book, with the nazis ultimate goal is to break the jews and make dehumanize them and if anything, their goal is take and diminish their belief.
In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when he questioned God, ¨Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled, he caused thousands of children to burn his Mass graves?¨(Wiesel 68). Overall, Wiesel does not follow the words of God and is not believing in him anymore because he thinks God is the one thatś letting all the inhumanity occur. One theme in Night is that inhumanity can cause disbelief or incredulity.
The Holocaust affects Jews in a way that seems unimaginable, and most of these effects seem to have been universal experiences; however, in the matter of faith, Jews in the concentration camp described in Elie Wiesel’s Night are affected differently and at different rates. The main character, Elie, loses his faith quickly after the sights he witnesses (as well as many others); other Jews hold on much longer and still pray in the face of total destruction. In the beginning, all of the Jews are more or less equally faithful in their God and religion.