Loss Of Religion In Night By Elie Wiesel

Written from the perspective of a teenager, Elie Wiesel explained his experience during World War II and the Holocaust. Eliezer grew up in the small transylvanian town, Sighet, located in Hungarian Transylvania. Before the war, Eliezer was very religious and would often go to the synagogue to pray. Eliezer would frequently involve himself with religious stating, “I continued to devote myself to my studies, Talmud during the day and Kabbalah at night”(Wiesel 8). Eliezer would talk with Moishe the Beadle about religion and the Kabbalah. When Elie and his family failed to flee the country, they were sent to concentration camps. There, Eliezer got separated from his sister and mother, but remained with his father. Through the horrors of the concentration camps, Elie lost his faith. Before the war, Eliezer was very religious, but his journey through the Holocaust and Auschwitz made him lose his faith,

Elie believed that if there was a God, he would most certainly would not allow these acts of horror. He was terror-struck by the crematories, the hangings, and the gas chambers that he felt like a part of him just died, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul and turned my dreams to dust..."(Wiesel 32). During his time in Auschwitz, Elie experienced innocent Jews being tortured in cruel ways, people starving, and family members killing each other over a piece of bread. Elie witnessed a father and son beat each other nearly to death over something as simple as a piece of bread, “"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 doesn’t understand why he should “bless” God because of all the cruelness that he didn’t interfere with. It was at that moment, when Elie saw a father and son kill each other over a piece of bread that he lost his faith in