Imagine living in a world where people are judged, discriminated against, harmed, and even killed simply just because they are different. Imagine how those people feel when they have to carry the burden of the trauma afterwards. In history, discrimination has been apparent for many different groups of people, such as people of color receiving worse treatment in society because of their skin. This discrimination resulting in trauma was also a reality for the millions of Jewish people who were held in concentration camps, killed, and the many Jews who had to witness the killings because of the God that they devoted their lives to. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the reader is informed about the horrible treatment of the Jews and the bad conditions …show more content…
For example, Elie was extremely faithful and showed great interest in learning more about his religion, so much so that he decided to find his own master to teach him Kabbalah. At first, Elie insisted to his father to find him a master to guide him in his studies of the Kabbalah, but his father believed he was too young. Not satisfied with this, Elie found his own master, Moishe the Beadle, and they would study together almost every evening at the synagogue, speaking about the Kabbalah’s revelations and reading the same page of the Zohar over and over. This shows that despite his father's disapproval, Elie was determined to explore and practice his religion whether or not he had to find help himself. Elie going out of his way to find a master and then regularly practicing with him shows his true interest and love for his faith. However, after experiencing the trauma of the concentration camp, Elie began to lose his faith. In this scene, Elie is at the concentration camp when he hears Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday, being discussed by fellow inmates at the camp. Although they typically fast on this holiday, Elie reveals to the reader that he refuses to fast in order to “protest” God for what he has allowed to happen at the camps. When Elie explains the reasons as to why he refuses to fast on Yom Kippur, he says, “...there was no longer any reason for me …show more content…
For example, once Elie and his father were separated from his mother and sisters, Elie was determined to stay with his father as he was the only person in his family Elie had left. When Elie’s group of people arrived at Birkenau, they were told to line up and wait to be assessed by Dr. Mengele. After Elie is interviewed and sent to the left, he waits for his father to see where he would be sent, saying that if his father was sent to the right, he would run after him. This shows that Elie was determined to stay close with his father since everything he had ever known was already taken away from him. Elie having to leave his house, belongings, and half of his family behind left him scared and emotionally vulnerable, unaware of what was soon to come at the camps, so remaining with his father was the only thing he had left to keep him optimistic. Furthermore, Elie’s relationship with his father worsened as they spent more time at the concentration camp. In this scene, Elie’s father is extremely sick after having been in the concentration camp for a long time. After his father is gone in the morning and assumed to have been sent to the furnace because of his poor condition, Elie expresses to the reader how he did not necessarily feel sad after his father got sick and died. While explaining his emotions surrounding his fathers death,
Elie does not want to be separated from his father and be left alone. The Jewish people were first taken to a concentration camp called Auschwitz, and when they arrived, Elie and his father were separated from Elie’s mother and his sister, Tzipora. Later on, they found out that the women and children were burned in a crematorium. The book states, “The baton pointed to the left. I took half a step forward.
In the camps, Elie and his father only had each other, and that changed the way they felt about each other from the very beginning. Elie had almost no relationship with his father prior to the holocaust. Back in his hometown of Sighet, Elie's father was a busy community leader, and his work gave him little time for his family. Elie recalls that his father "rarely displayed his feelings... and was more involved with the well welfare of others than with that of his own kin" (Wiesel
Within seconds of being there, he lost his faith in god. Elie Wiesel’s joy and love for his religion completely changed from wanting to learn, to doubting it. Wiesel’s change in faith helped keep him alive in the concentration camp. When he was in the camp the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur came around and in his words, “To fast could mean a more certain, more rapid death” (Wiesel 69). A lot of the people did not fast including Elie because his father told him not to and because he, “[...] no longer accepted God’s silence” (Wiesel 69).
All throughout the book Elie had shown signs of distress when he was threatened with losing his father. A great example of this was when they had to run past the SS doctors and Dr. Mengele as fast as they could, because they believed if they got their right arms number written down it would be certain death. Elie went first and waited for his father for what seemed like eternity and finally he saw his father heading towards him. Then they immediately asked each other, "Did you pass? Yes.
It might not have been his whole life but this was a big part of his story. Elie was hurt by God and was mad but when you love and know someone will always be there for you, you will always love them. Elie “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed.” (Wiesel 91)
For example, when his dad gets beaten by Idek, instead of feeling sorry for him Elie is angry. Elie states, "if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath? That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me..." (54). This quote shows how concentration camps change a person's identity tremendously.
During the trauma of the concentration camps, Elie changes physically, spiritually, and emotionally. During Elie’s imprisonment by the Nazis, he undergoes a physical transformation. As the Nazis forced them to march Elie wrote, “I had no strength left. The journey had just begun and I already felt weak…”(Wiesel 19).
In the coming weeks, the true weight of the situation landed on Elie. In Night, Elie goes as far as to not describe his life during the period after his father's death as, “It no longer mattered anymore” (Wiesel 113). He goes on to say, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered during that period” (Wiesel 113). While Elie’s father was a responsibility Elie did not wish to bear during the camps, he soon came to find out that without him his life lacked meaning. Without his father, he had lost the one thing he had left that brought him purpose.
This choice was difficult for Elie and his father because everyday they spent at the camp could be getting closer to death by the gas chambers. They wanted to stay alive but if they had stayed at the camp, they risked being killed in just the day left that they had before the Russians would come. Elie and his father have a conversation about what will be decided, “Well, father, what do we do?’ He was silent. ‘Let’s be evacuated with the others,’ I said.
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.
Throughout Night, by Elie Wiesel, the narrator, Wiesel, was subjected to changes within his ideals and religious beliefs. When Wiesel was first introduced to the book, he was a devout Jewish boy who loved his father and had his total faith in God. Over time, Wiesel began to change as a result of being beaten down almost every day and witnessing his fellow Jews being worked to death or simply killed for not being fit enough. "I watched it all happening without moving. I kept silent.
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
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 “. . .
Rabbi Eliahu only cared about finding his son, he didn't care if was cold, or tired. He searched through other people's dead bodies just to find his family. There is the second example that Elie put into his writing to prove that family is important to keep in a crisis. The theme was represented throughout the story by Elie’s mother and sister
At a young age, Elie and many others were persecuted for their race. Because of this persecution, thousands of Jews died, including Elie’s mother and sister (Chapter 3). Elie was forced to labor for hours alongside his dad while also dealing with the effects of losing his family. Nevertheless, Elie persisted and stayed strong, despite having every reason to break down. This alone is a tell-tale sign of his strength.