Experiences that Change Us
Elie Wiesel grew up in the Transylvanian town of Sighet. Everyday Elie would study Talmud, as Elie’s father, who was highly respected in the Jewish Community in Sighet, told him to, but Elie yearned to study Kabbalah. To Elie’s dismay, his father would not approve and said, “There are not Kabbalists in Sighet”. This led to Elie asking the town beggar, Moishe the Beadle, to teach him Kabbalah. Moishe represents an earnest commitment to Judaism, as Elie goes on to lose faith in God. In Moishe’s statement “I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions,” Moishe tells Elie that the idea that God is everywhere, even within every individual, and the idea that faith is based on questions, not answers. Eliezer’s struggle with faith is, for the most part, a struggle of questions. He continually asks where God has gone and questions how such evil could exist in the world. Moishe’s statement tells us that
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Then, the Germans force the Jew to form small ghettos within the town. Soon they are herded onto cattle cars, and a nightmarish journey ensues. After days and nights crammed into the car, exhausted and near starvation, the passengers arrive at Birkenau, the gateway to Auschwitz. Upon his arrival in Birkenau, Eliezer and his father are separated from his mother and sisters, whom they never see again. At Birkenau, the Germans perform “selections” to determine who should be killed immediately or put to work. Only those who were able-bodied would be allowed to live and be fed. Elie and his father pass the first selection and before they go to the prisoner barracks, they stumble upon the open-pit furnaces where the Nazis are burning babies by the truckload. In camp, Elie and his father, work hard to get almost no food and shelter. Slowly, Elie loses his faith in God and
Even some of the guards had taken a liking to him. In the beginning, Elie Wiesel was desperate to learn more about God. He repeatedly asked his father to help him find a master to help guide him in his studies of Kabbalah. When his father explained that there were not any Kabbalists in Sighet, he set out to find one himself.
Couple days later Elie's’ father was taken to be talked to. When he came back they found out they were going to be shoved in cattle cars that were transported to concentration camps and that is where it all began. While everyone was on the cattle car going to their next destination, there was barely any water or food. It was silent but then, Mrs. Schachter started
Selection was an essential component to life in Auschwitz, where all the healthy survived and the weak were sent to die. Elie was on the cusp of starvation and his father was a man far past his prime. Elie immediately passed selection, as he was young. His father, on the other hand, needed further inspection. Elie’s father passed a spoon and knife to his son, which Elie assumed was his inheritance.
Elie is separated from his mother and his sisters, but he remains with his father. They lie about their ages so that they can live. If you are too young or too old you are of no use at Auschwitz. Later they arrive at Auschwitz and they lie again to Dr. Mengele and Elie says he is a farmer, not a student. After, they move on to the pit.
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, he narrates his horrific experience during the time the holocaust took place. He is shown going through many changes within his mentality and direct focus on a person, place or thing during this time. While Wiesel cared so much about God, religion, and culture, his focus and overall perspective on the world around him tends to take a shift as he transitions into a more harsh environment in the beginning of the holocaust. Wiesel changes his perspective on his surroundings due to the suffering that takes part in these concentration camps in which he was transported into. These events have a big effect on the details in which gain lots of weight overtime as he’s describing certain situations.
Over six million jews died during the Holocaust; that’s about 64% of the total jewish population before 1945! Night is about fourteen year old Elie Wiesel and his experience with the concentration camps Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, Gleiwitz, and Buchenwald. In the book ‘Night” by Elie Wiesel the protagonist; Elie, is affected by the events in the book because of his father, his loss of self-worth, and his loss of faith on his religion. In the book, Elie’s father affected him because he was always with Elie from the beginning to end.
After they arrive at Auschwitz, Elie and his father are greeted by an officer. The officer tells them, “‘Here you must work. If you don’t you will go straight to the chimney. To the crematorium. Work or crematorium–the choice is yours’” (39).
Everyone has hopes and dreams in life. Some people’s dreams can be ruined in very little time. Elie Wiesel changes as a person through Night as a result of his father dying, receiving little food and seeing unpleasant sights. Elie relied on his father for useful advice and some skills. His father taught him many things that stuck with him for the rest of his life.
Eliezer and his father passed the evaluation. They are brought to the prisoner’s barracks. The Jewish arrivals is treated with cruelty. The captors march them from Birkenau to the main camp, Auschwitz. They arrive in Buna, a work camp, where Elie is put to work in an electrical-fittings factory.
After a very long horrid train ride of Mrs. Schächter “prophesizing” about seeing flames, the Jews of Sighet arrive at Birkenau where they are separated by gender. Elie and his father are now on their own. 4. With the fear of the first selection behind them, Elie and the other man are sent to the showers, and assigned to a barrack, A while later, all the men are transferred to Auschwitz. Elie and his father are given block 17 to stay in.
This is where they chose who would live and who would die. At the beginning of Elie’s journey, he mostly went through age and strength selections, but as he stayed longer the selections became more about who was in good enough health to be able to do the work the German Soldiers made them do. The first selection he gets through is actually based on gender, which he doesn’t have any choices to make for. He was a male, who was not a young child, so they sent him with the other males. In the book, it is never really allows the reader to know what happened to the women and children, but the story is in Elie’s point of view, and based on what he saw and came to know.
Screams of anguish, the smell of burning flesh, corpses lining the crimson soil—these are only a few of the horrors one would face as a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp at the time of the Holocaust. Eliezer Wiesel, author of the memoir Night, has witnessed all of this, at the young age of 15. Over the course of the catastrophe, Eliezer shows drastic signs of spiritual change before, during, and after being held prisoner at the camps of death. Prior to the incident, Elie’s faith in his God was very strong. He describes bringing his needs to his father as, “One day I asked my father to find me a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah,” (page 4).
Victim of Isis are experiencing death, suffering, and with no hope in sight. But the horrific events was not happening in the middle east during present times, but during world war II in Germany. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel explains his experiences during the holocaust. Elie Wiesel wrote this book so he can inform people who weren’t there or didn’t know what happened to prevent this from happening again. Elie Wiesel assert this by show loss of faith, brutality and suffering Elie Wiesel, for a period of time of his life, experienced many things witnessing many deaths and malnourishment for years.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night explains how the holocaust has changed his life. This essay is about how Elie Wiesel has changed over time because of the concentration camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The memoir Night is about Elie Wiesel and everyone around him with their experience at Auschwitz. It talks about how they had to deal with the Nazi’s and how they had to put up with so much death. It explains how he turned from being pouis about life to wanting to not exist.
In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone” (110). This is very hard to hear, especially when family is such an important thing for Jews. This causes Elie to lose hope. The camps are torturous and weaken their spirits which makes them only think about themselves, but when they are selfish, it is very miserable because they shut people out.