Physically Abused In Elie Wiesel's Night

In the World War II extermination camp Chelmno there were 150,000 deaths, the camp Belzec had 435,000 deaths, and the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau camp ruled with over 1,000,000 deaths. In the unbelievable novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author gives the audience a first person look on his experiences throughout his time at several prisoner of war camps as a Jewish teenager. Through the use of motifs about the night and a person’s eyes, Wiesel writes about the deeper meaning of how he kept his dignity in the face of inhumane cruelty. By analyzing the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, one can interpret the central theme of the story into a deeper meaning from the descriptions of the night and eyes, which is important because it helps younger generations to understand clearly what Holocaust survivors endured.

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?

It no longer mattered. Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me anymore.” After the events Elie witnessed in Auschwitz he was a changed man. He no longer felt that his life mattered. He was in disbelief that this “God of Mercy” could let these awful events occur.

Elie was held captive in concentration camps from 1944-1945. During his time in the concentration camps, he became grateful for what he had, overcame countless obstacles, and more importantly kept fighting until he was free. [The Holocaust is very important to learn about because it can teach you some important life lessons.] You should always be grateful for what you have, no matter what the circumstances are. This lesson can be learned when Elie says, “After my father’s death, nothing could touch me any more”(109).

“He leapt on me like a wild animal, hitting me in the chest, his blows growing more and more violent, until I was covered with blood”(Wiesel 60). This was just one of the times in Night where physical violence was used to take the life out of the Jews. They were constantly beaten, most of the time over insignificant reasons, because the Nazis did not want them to fight back. After this particular instance where Elie was beaten by Idek, Elie became significantly quieter in his protests against the Nazi officers. He would not go out of his way to help his fellow prisoners anymore.

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

When Elie’s dad is close to death, an officer savagley beats him in front of Elie. “ I did not move, I was afraid.” he then feels guilty about his lack of action. Rather that helping, his father, he watches quietly as he is beaten when he struggles to hang on to life. Of course there would have definitley been a severe punishment for Elie or any other prisoner who spoke up against the guards but this happens so often in the camps that it becomes implied that this silent, resistant behavoir of the prisoners is what allows these types of punishments to occur everyday in the camps.

Elie views many terrible actions performed by the Nazis. For example, “Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes… children thrown into flames.” (Wiesel 32). He saw cruel actions that caused him to question his faith. Despite all of this Elie persevered to let people know what they were unaware of.

The Holocaust was a horrible time in the 1940s. Hitler the leader of the Nazi’s had an idea of just having the perfect people which was having blonde hair and blue eyes. Hitler's plan was to kill the people who didn’t have these appearances. Hitler would do this by creating concentration camps that would torture, kill people in many ways which for example burning, starving them to death. In the book Night a book Elie Wiesel a Holocaust survivor wrote, talks how Elie survived those terrible times. How the Nazi treated Jews, what it was like in the camps, what the Jews had to go through to be able to survive. Elie Wiesel and the other prisoners weren't treated like humans when they were being killed like cattle in the slaughterhouse, when they

For most people, you have a feeling or need to help others. When someone is bleeding or hurt you wouldn’t just leave them. Caring for others and being compassionate comes naturally to most. Despite how most people would react it’s not what Elie had witnessed. Forced out of the Ghettos, thrown into a train full of people where you couldn’t move or sit. “‘There are eighty of you in this car,’ the German officer added. ‘ If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs.’” They were over packed in the cart. Treated as if they weren’t people and told if they tried to escape they’d be killed. Not only did they threaten to kill them but they compared to an animal, showing what the Nazis actually thought about them.

It goes without saying Elie was very strong. The mental and physical resilience it would have taken to come back from that experience, to go on and publish books and do interviews is unimaginable. If Elie wasn’t empathetic, he wouldn't have kept his father alive as long as he did, and he himself may not have been around to share his experience. If Elie wasn't resilient, he wouldn't have been able to constantly recount his experiences to the world. He could have simply holed himself up and hid from the world, a thought that would have no doubt been tempting.

Later on in the book we see Elie being subject to cruel punishment in the camp. He had seen one of the leaders at the camp engaging in relations with a female. For this he was beaten brutally with a whip, receiving 25 lashes. This is in violation of Article 5, which states that no one shall subject to torture at the hand of their government These are just a few of the violations to be found throughout the book.

In the book Night, you learn the true horrors of the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a terrible event that occurred during WWII. It dehumanized millions of people and took away their human rights. They were forced out of their homes. They were beaten, tortured and killed.

It’s difficult to imagine the way humans brutally humiliate other humans based on their faith, looks, or mentality but somehow it happens. On the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, he gives the reader a tour of World War Two through his own eyes , from the start of the ghettos all the way through the liberation of the prisoners of the concentration camps. This book has several themes that develop throughout its pages. There are three themes that outstand from all the rest, these themes are brutality, humiliation, and faith. They’re the three that give sense to the reading.

Effects of Trauma in Night How can extreme suffering change a person? Going through a German concentration camp causes many people to have life changing differences in their lives. Elie Wiesel tells his personal experience of going through a concentration camp in his book Night. He shares the horrific events that he, his father, and others had to experience.