Night: A Purposeful and Inspirational Memoir
Holocaust is defined as a destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war. What Elie Wiesel endured cannot be explained by this short definition. Wiesel depicts his horrifying experiences during the Holocaust in his famous memoir Night. He begins his memoir by talking about what his life was like before the Holocaust in his hometown Sighet. Elie’s placid life changes quickly as the Germans begin to persecute Jews in other towns around his hometown. Many people around Elie continue to deny that these horrific events are reality, which certainly leads to confusion and shock when German officers appear in town and begin to organize the formation and construction of
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When Elie first arrives at Birkenau, he goes through the initial selection and walks in line with many other prisoners. After making it through with his father, they begin to march towards a pit of fire which happens to be near an electric fence. Elie then states to himself, “If I wanted to bring my own death, now was the moment...My heart was bursting, the moment had come. I was face to face with the Angel of Death.” (Wiesel 31) Elie luckily doesn’t end up killing himself in this moment, however, the thoughts that occur in his head are relevant. He plans to resist the Nazis by attempting to determine his own fate instead of being gassed or burned alive. The internal conflict of this situation causes great emotion from Elie as he goes from shocked to panicked as his heart begins to race because he is about to face death at age fifteen. The sharp contrast from where he was in his home days ago to his current situation causes Elie to mature greatly. This situation is relevant today because suicide is a large part of society as mental diseases like depression and anxiety become more prominent each year. People can learn that there is more to life; by not killing himself here, Elie learned many important life lessons throughout his journey, and in the end survives the Holocaust, an incomprehensible …show more content…
A significant example of this occurs when Elie watches Rabbi Eliahou’s son leave him behind during the forty-two mile “death march.” Elie lies to Rabbi Eliahou and said that that he had not seen his son, he soon comes a to a realization and states to himself, “A terrible thought looked up in my mind: he had wanted to get rid of his father! He had felt that his father was growing weak…” (87). Elie is appalled by what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done, he ran away from his father thinking that he would not make it and that he would be trampled most likely. This deeply affects Elie as he and his father have a strong relationship and it physically hurts him to see something like this happen. His son had put himself first instead of his family, knowing that he would probably never see him again. A truly terrifying example of what not to do when faced with adversity. Another example of negative resistance occurs during Elie’s time in the cattle car. A father says to his son while he is beating him over a piece of bread, “Meir. Meir, my boy! Don’t you recognize me? I’m your father….you’re hurting me…” (96) Yet another example of a broken father-son relationship, the son ultimately kills his father over the piece of bread, however the son is then killed by other men. Elie is mentally affected by this as he and his father’s relationship is
The memoir Night by Elie Wiesel remains a constant reminder of the horrors that happened to him and many others during the Holocaust in 1930’s through the 1940’s. The Holocaust was a tragedy that resulted in millions of Jews being murdered. One of these unlucky people who experienced this was Elie Wiesel. While in the camps, he experienced beatings and defeat daily. The torture he endured changed both his relationships with close family and friends and his faith.
For example when Elie says “Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me… You’re killing your father…I have bread…for you too…for you too…” He collapsed….. The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died.” This shows how just for a piece of bread someone's son is willing to beat up his father for it and not care that it’s his father he is hurting.
The novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is an autobiography about how he drew strength from his father to survive the Holocaust. Elie, along with his father and many other Jewish citizens, were imprisoned to live a long and horrific life in the concentration camps. He had to fight each and every day to survive and
Brother against brother, father against son, many would fight their own family for a small bite of food. This is important because Elie had to watch a son kill his father for a piece of bread, and then himself get killed by another group for the same crumb. Those men then proceeded to all fight each other for the piece of bread. Elie, though, tried his best to give his food to his sick father, but was met with bad attitudes of the other sick patients around him. They told him to not only eat his own food, but to eat his father’s portion also, as his father had little time left.
In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people.
Some of the terrible events that Elie witnessed involved men, women, and children being burned alive in crematoriums. He could not believe that man was capable of committing these types of crimes against fellow man. As a result, Elie pinches himself to make sure that he is not dreaming, and is in disbelief about what he is seeing being reality. This moment, one of his firsts in Auschwitz, is the first piece of evidence he started to loose faith.
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, overcame his experiences as a teen in concentration camps and became a human rights activist over the course of his life. Before becoming a well known human rights activist, Wiesel was deported with his family when he was fifteen by Nazis. His family was separated upon their arrival at the concentration camp; later, his mother and younger sister passed away while his older sister survived. Elie and his father were then transported to Buchenwald where his father died right before the camp became liberated, making Elie Wiesel the only Holocaust survivor of his family. Elie Wiesel is referred to as “messenger of the dead amongst the living” because he speaks for the souls lost in the Holocaust and provides hindsight
for example while on the train Elie says. “Forbidden to go outside, people relieved themselves in a corner.” This one is kind of tame, but it shows how when people are pushed, they do desperate things. Another example of this is when Idek, the Kapo says “You shall receive five times more if you dare to tell anyone what you saw! Understand?”
Before he and his family were sent to the concentration camps, Elie was described as a loving, smart, and caring boy. But as months go by in the concentration camps he slowly begins to his emotions for other people, which definitely affects the way he thinks mentally. In page 112 he stated, “I did not weep, and is pained that I could not weep. But I was out of tears”, which displayed Elie’s inner emotions and meant that he didn’t have enough in him to feel sad because he went through so much during the concentration camps he felt emotionally tired to feel anything. The day after his father died he said, “Since my father’s death nothing mattered to me anymore,” meaning he had nothing to live for or no one to care for anymore.
In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel is one of his many novels that he has written in his life. Wiesel is a holocaust survivor that went through terrible time just as other survivors did. Ten years later Wiesel writes his novel Night and shares his story of surviving the holocaust. Wiesel story of surviving the holocaust triggers many emotional connections. Wiesel makes relate in way when he writes.
“The bad part about being so numb is there will come a time when you’ll want to feel something, but you won’t know how to.” -Unknown Holocaust victims often became numb to all of the terrible things they have experienced. In some instances, victims have become so numb to death and destruction of those around them that they do not feel anything when a loved one dies. In Night, by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel explains his personal experiences and struggles while being a victim of the Holocaust.
In this book Elie speaks of his hardships and how he survived the concentration camps. Elie quickly changed into a sorrowful person, but despite that he was determined to stay alive no matter the cost. For instance, during the death
In Night. People in concentration camps tried to protect each other but struggled very hard to do so. Sometimes, they barely had a chance to begin with. For example, Elie witnessed someone kill himself because they already committed all he had left to taking care of a family member and was stuck. “A terrible thought crossed my mind: What if he had wanted to be rid of his father?
Although survival was a key aspect in concentration camps, Elie gradually begins to live numbly, surviving only because instinct told him to. He no longer cared for the meaning of life, and his only thoughts were of bread, much like a stray dog hoping it would find morsels of food to live off of. However, he didn't start off this way. At the start, he lived for his father. Schlomo Wiesel was Elie's only reason to live, but prior to his father's death, he slowly began to free himself of caring.
Night Paper Assignment Night, by Elie Wiesel, is a tragic memoir that details the heinous reality that many persecuted Jews and minorities faced during the dark times of the Holocaust. Not only does Elie face physical deprivation and harsh living conditions, but also the innocence and piety that once defined him starts to change throughout the events of his imprisonment in concentration camp. From a boy yearning to study the cabbala, to witnessing the hanging of a young child at Buna, and ultimately the lack of emotion felt at the time of his father 's death, Elie 's change from his holy, sensitive personality to an agnostic and broken soul could not be more evident. This psychological change, although a personal journey for Elie, is one that illustrates the reality of the wounds and mental scars that can be gained through enduring humanity 's darkest times.