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Bearing Witness In Night By Elie Wiesel

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Recommended: Themes in holocaust literature

One way authors show their understanding of the impact bearing witness has on others is by preserving history. By doing this, Alexander Kimel, Primo Levi, and Elie Wiesel raise awareness about events from the Holocaust that could go ignored and ultimately forgotten. The first way an author shows this is in The Action in the Ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942. In this poem, The author struggles to understand and remember what happened while he was placed in the Ghetto of Rohatyn. He soon realizes the responsibility of bearing witness, and that even if it is difficult, he is obligated to remember, so that he can preserve history, “And a long tortuous journey into an unnamed place / Converting living souls, into ashes and gas. / No. I have to remember and never let you …show more content…

Another example comes from the book Night. This book is about a boy who describes his experiences while living through the Holocaust. However, the book also shows light on characters who do not have a voice, because they did not get to live through the experience, "Even Moishe the Beadle had fallen silent. He was weary of talking. He would drift through synagogue or through the streets, hunched over, eyes cast down, avoiding people's gaze." (Weisel, 8) This quote is about a man from Weisel’s hometown. From the quote, the reader knows by the first letter “Even” that Moishe the Beadle was not always silent. The man had endorsed an event that forced him to silence himself and without Weisel. Moishe the Beadle would not be a known figure. However, the author utilized his powerful responsibility to preserve history after observing the figure.The final example comes from the poem The Survivor. In this poem, the author struggles to fathom what he has went through during the Holocaust. The author continues to relive the experience in his head repeatedly, “Once more he sees his companions’ faces / Livid in the first faint light, / Gray with cement dust,” (Levi,

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In his Nobel prize speech in 1986 Elie Wiesel stated that” to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time”. In his memoir, Night by Elie Wiesel, he shares his experiences of the Holocaust through the eyes of a young teenager. Ellie and his father, Shlomo, must quickly adapt from a peaceful life to living a nightmare in the concentration camps. The memoir highlights the horrific war crimes the Nazis committed, and the suffering Jewish people went through. The best authors are often the ones who can make the reader attach to a text.

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Writing preserves memories and actions. Without writing, there is no memory and no acknowledgment of these actions. Furthermore, literature can and will remain a potent weapon in any situation. This book is one of the most significant pieces of education and history from the holocaust. Ellie received a Nobel peace prize for his work.

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Eva Kor and Elie Wiesel, two survivors of the Holocaust, were also activists within the Jewish community. They were known outside of their communities for spreading inspirational speeches and ideologies to heal and overcome the experiences of the Holocaust. Even though Eva Kor and Elie Wiesel’s ideas and motivations were different, they had the same effect on people in and outside of their communities. After all, they were both able to leave lasting impressions on the world. Elie Wiesel focused on telling his story, and describing how he survived the traumatic event through his memoir, Night, that demonstrated his perseverance through the Holocaust.

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The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in history. It just so happened to be the cause of six million deaths. While there are countless beings who experienced such trauma, it is impossible to hear everyone's side of the story. However, one man, in particular, allowed himself to speak of the tragedies. Elie Wiesel addressed the transformation he underwent during the Holocaust in his memoir, Night.

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This idea is shared all over, one example is from the article “It Happened” Lily Elbert explains her experience in the Holocaust

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Victim of Isis are experiencing death, suffering, and with no hope in sight. But the horrific events was not happening in the middle east during present times, but during world war II in Germany. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel explains his experiences during the holocaust. Elie Wiesel wrote this book so he can inform people who weren’t there or didn’t know what happened to prevent this from happening again. Elie Wiesel assert this by show loss of faith, brutality and suffering Elie Wiesel, for a period of time of his life, experienced many things witnessing many deaths and malnourishment for years.

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(101). This heart-wrenching scene highlights the emotional impact of the Holocaust on families and loved ones. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel struggles with his faith and belief in God, as he is forced to witness the atrocities that humans are capable of committing against one another. His candid and emotionally charged writing provides readers with a window into the psychological trauma that the survivors of the Holocaust endured. Lastly, Wiesel uses symbolism to depict the loss of humanity that occurred during the Holocaust.

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In a situation where your body is surviving on a thread, your stomach is inflated due to starvation and all the strength you had before is gone, you have to rely on mental and religious strength to carry you through your hardships. In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, Elie talks about his personal experiences and hardships he faced during WWII and his life at Auschwitz as a young boy. Throughout the story Elie pushes through losing his mother and sister, lashings, seeing babies burned alive and the fear of death but also the hope for it in some situations. No amount of physical strength can help someone survive in the brutal place Auschwitz. Everywhere in the story Elie and other characters show that with mental and religious/spiritual strength, you can push through any hardship you have to face.

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Elie Wiesel and his family made the decision to not bear witness for many reasons, but in the end they came to regret it. His way of making sure that others do not make the same mistake was through his memoir Night. The only thing thing that came from The Holocaust are the lessons we learn from it. This is why it is essential for people to bear witness at all times. History tries to repeat itself.

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The author shows how terrifying it was to be in the camps but also how faith can help you get through those tough times. Religion and faith can shape a person's form in different ways either a good or bad way. The book shows how these camps can use a person's humanity, and How it can affect their religion. Eliezer and his family got captured and taken to camps, while some died and others were injured. Eliezer had to use his faith in god to know they would come out alive even if he had second thoughts.

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Wiesel wrote “Our senses were numbed, and everything was fading into a fog. We no longer clung to anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us” (Wiesel 36) It shows the identity loss of the prisoners as they give in to the conditions of the concentration camp. It highlights the dehumanizing nature of the Holocaust.

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The human condition is a very malleable idea that is constantly changing due to the current state of mankind. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the concept of the human condition is displayed in the worst sense of the concept, during the Holocaust of WWII. During this time, multiple groups of people, most notably European Jews, were persecuted against and sent to horrible hard labor and killing centers such as Auschwitz. In this memoir, Wiesel uses complex figurative language such as similes and metaphors to display the theme that a person’s state as a human, both at a physical and emotional level, can be altered to extreme lengths, and even taken away from them, under the most extreme conditions.

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He explains the often weighty role of the survivor: one of someone who has other’s stories left in their hands after everyone else is long dead; “I believed that having survived by chance, I was duty-bound to give meaning to my survival, to justify each moment of my life. I knew the story had to be told. Not to transmit an experience is to betray it” (Wiesel 1). As a survivor of Auschwitz, he argues the importance of telling these stories, of respecting the dead by letting all know their stories and their downfall. Writing and surviving are both isolating experiences, but for a writer’s words to reach their full potential as stories and as essential truths, writing must be read.

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I really enjoyed this week’s reading. I have heard a lot of facts and stories about life at that time for those who suffered, but I have never heard a first account of not only the Holocaust in general but the most infamous concentration camp of all time. It was really intense for me while reading this book. Going with Elie through his memories of that whole process was a perspective I’ll never forget. You really felt like you were getting a glimpse into what he was feeling moment to moment.

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It's amazing to realize how much the human body can endure and still think of others. This man took hundreds of beatings and separated from his family yet still put others in front of him. He would steal bread from the bakery he worked at before he was selected and give it to his friends in the ghettos. He, like Eliezer, was put in ghettos.

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