The book Night, by Elie Wiesel, documents the Holocaust and the hatred Hitler showed towards the Jews and their families. Throughout the Holocaust, Hitler would imprison Jews in concentration camps throughout Europe. Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, writes in the book Night about his experiences in the concentration camps where he and other Jews were mistreated and abused. Even throughout the mistreatment, Elie expresses how important his family is to him.
The Holocaust was the genocide of the Jewish religion from 1933 to 1945. Hitler wanted to wipe out the Jews because he felt that the Jews were responsible for Germany’s loss in the World War. When Hitler gained power in 1933, he started the extermination of the Jews. The Nazi’s would take Jews from their homes and put them into concentration camps.
This is what happened to Elie and his entire town. In the concentration camps they were treated like animals, not humans. Survival in these camps was difficult for anyone to achieve. The people were so focused on survival that they thought that it was a free-for-all, as explained in
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Elie and his father were separated from the rest of their family early on in the book. They would try to stick together and help each other as much as possible. Elie’s family was one of the big reasons why Elie strived for survival in the camps. Being separated from all of his family except for his father, his father was the main motive for Elie to survive. This is shown to us in the book when Elie’s father dies and it says, “Suddenly, the evidence overwhelmed me: there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight.” Elie’s hope quickly changed into depression. Being with him all of the way, Elie’s father was the most important thing to him while he was in the camps. After his father’s death, Elie saw the rest of life as useless, as stated in the book, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me
People say family is everything, but did Elie need his father to survive? In Night, Elie and his family were one of the many families forced to live in multiple ghettos and make the long journey to Auschwitz. Once Elie and his father made it through selection they found out that Elie’s mother and sister didn’t, forcing their last encounter to be when they were ripped apart from each other. Elie and his father ate the small portions of bread and soup they were given while forced to work. Everyday was the same.
He was broken. Elie’s father was the only one that kept Elie from giving up, but his father died. Elie’s world shattered around
In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, he talks about his life alongside his father during the holocaust. As he and his father are separated from the rest of their family and forced to jump from camp to camp we see the harsh treatment put on to them from the SS soldiers in charge of the camp(s). The book surrounds father and son relationships greatly as well as highlighting the danger of indifference and of course the holocaust. We can see that through this novel the purpose is to bring awareness to the horrors of the holocaust and how in the end the indifference of the SS soldiers as well as that of the Jews in the camps was more dangerous than Hitler himself. Very early on in the camps the SS soldiers had begun to force the Jews to take the side of indifference towards one another.
People had gotten used to it and began to accept it as their daily life until Hitler was taken down. They had forgotten what it was like to truly be free. “As for us, chances were that we would be allowed to go on with our miserable little lives until the end of the war.” The Jews who survived the camps would possibly be able to return to their homes, but they would still be hated by their neighbors and the Germans around them. The majority of survivors of Hitler’s “Final Solution” ended up in large camps until housing could be established, but this time they were
During all of the struggles Elie gains a bit of life knowledge, and learns more emotions about himself. If this journey never happened Elie would still be focussing about his studies and not about his family. A fact Elie acquires during the holocaust is always to stay positive in hard times. An example of this is when Elie is running for miles and notices men giving up just makes Elie think about when he can sleep and eat at the next camp. When news comes that the Russians will save the prisoners, Elie keeps this as a positive and keeps thinking this horrifying journey will be over.
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
Elie’s determination to stay with his father was constantly present. He showed this determination all the time. Elie reflects on a time in the camp, “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone” (30).
When they first arrived at Auschwitz Elie and his father looked to each other for support and survival, Sometimes Elie’s father being the only thing keeping him alive. In their old community Elie’s father was a strong-willed and respected community leader, as the book went on you could see how the roles were becoming reversed he was becoming weaker and more reliant on Elie to take care of him. Their father son bond had always been strong and only grew stronger with the things they had to endure. “My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done” Elie was disgusted when he saw Rabbi Eliahou’s son abandon his father to help improve his chances of his survival he prayed he’d never do such a thing, but as his father becoming progressively more reliant on Elie he started to see his father as more of a burden than anything else.
For this reason the Elie wouldn’t have known about the extreme horror that was lying ahead for his entire family. This choice positively impacted the author’s life by not being separated from his father. “Naturally, we refused to be separated” (20). Hypothetically, if Elie left with his sisters, his father would have no motivation to survive by not knowing if his family is
Thanks to his father, Elie learned to take care of someone and how to survive by himself. You're family is going to be there for you, they are your blood and that bond between you all cannot be
Think of a circumstance where you were so hungry and thirsty, that you did not even care to think about your father anymore. That circumstance goes against common father-son relationships. The common father-son motif is where the father looks out and cares for the son. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, he explains why the circumstances around a father-son relationship can change their relationship, whether it 's for the better or the worse. Since the book is about the life of Elie in a Nazi concentration camp, the circumstances were harsh and took a toll on multiple father-son relationships.
Near the beginning of the novel, Elie wanted to be in the same camp with his father more than anything else. The work given to both his father and himself was bearable, but as time passed by, “. . . his father was getting weaker” (107). The weaker Elie’s father got, the more sacrifices Elie made. After realizing the many treatments Elie was giving his father compared to himself, each additional sacrifice made Elie feel as if his “. . .
The empathy he felt for his father is what drove him to stay alive, to fight for his life. Without his father, he would have given into exhaustion long before the American tanks arrived at the camp. Elie's father gave him strength, therefore giving him resilience. Strong people are resilient people; it took everything Elie had to keep himself alive. In the times he wanted so badly just to lie down, to give up it was his father's presence which kept him alive.
Elie 's inaction or inability to help his father and his guilt for not doing so helped Elie to shape the person he has become now is because he kept on realizing his stand on the situation on the harsh behavior towards his father. As he starts to live more with his father he became started to realize how important he was to him and how important he is for him. In the book Night, Chapter 7, when Elie and his after were on the cattle car he said"My father had huddled near me, draped in his blanket, shoulders laden with snow. And what if he were dead as well? I called out to him.
In the novel Night the protagonist, Elie Wiesel, narrates his experiences as a young Jewish boy surviving the Holocaust. Elie 's autobiographical memoir informs the reader about how the Nazis captured the Jews and enslaved them in concentration camps, where they experienced the absolute worst forms of torture, abuse and inhumane treatment. Dehumanization is shown in the story when the Jews were stripped of their identities and belongings, making them feel worthless as people. From the start of Elie Wiesel 's journey of the death camps, his beliefs of his own religion is fragile as he starts to lose his faith. Lastly, camaraderie is present as people in the camps are all surviving together to stay alive so as a result the people in the camp shine light on other people 's darkness.