Examples Of Loss Of Faith In Night By Elie Wiesel

Brandon Smidl
Ms. Cavaliere
English 10
5 January 2023
Loss of Faith by Witnessing Human Suffering A story named “Night” by Eliezer Wiesel confronts the topic of losing faith through human suffering by relating it to personal experiences during the Holocaust. The main character, Elie (Eliezer), talks about his experiences going through the countless Nazi-run concentration camps that were meant to conflict pain and suffering upon the Jewish people. Due to the atrocities that the Jewish prisoners faced every day many of them lost their faith in God and questioned their faith and belief in a higher power.

During the time of the holocaust, many Jewish prisoners were sent to what

This harsh reality helped put into perspective how the Nazi officers saw the Jewish prisoners not as people but as a number. While in a concentration camp, Eliezer witnessed a small child being hanged. This event for Eliezer put his faith and understanding of God on the line. “For God's sake, where is God?"... And from within me, I heard a voice answer…"Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows” (65). “Hanging here from this gallows” is how Eliezer describes his faith in this chapter. Using the event of the child being hanged to directly relate it to the faith of Jewish prisoners in the time of the Holocaust helps readers understand the emotional and spiritual impact of seeing human suffering on a level like this. Many Jewish prisoners, including Eliezer, have slowly been losing faith in God but this event made them question how someone so powerful as their God could let something like this happen. Using an event as cruel and despicable as this helps readers understand how the Jewish prisoners lost their faith and understanding of God in times as harsh and dark as