Chapter Summary Of Night By Elie Wiesel

Loss of Faith and Childhood Innocence Since it first came out in 1960, over 10 million copies of Night by Elie Wiesel have been sold; the moving story recounts the anecdote of a firsthand account of the Holocaust. Professor and author Ellen S. Fine comments that the book "[...] communicates the vision of a nightmare: the voyage from a familiar to unknown world, a son's perception of the slow death of his father and the spiritual death of himself" (48). It outlines the author as a teenager before and during the Holocaust, including his relationships, the horrors he witnesses, and his journey with faith. Before the Holocaust begins, Elie and his family live in a town called Sighet in Romania. Eventually, his family moves to a small, cramped

Elie studies more about his religion as he enters his teenage years. Specifically, he studies the Kabbalah and has found someone to speak to about his studies and to teach him more: Moishe the Beadle, who works in a Hasidic house of prayer. Knowing extensive knowledge about Judaism, Moishe imparts his wisdom to Elie daily. Elie explains that they “[...] spoke that way almost every evening, remaining in the synagogue long after all the faithful had gone” (5). Prioritizing his religion, Elie dedicates his time to studying it. Furthermore, faith and trust can be described as part of one’s childhood because most children see both of them in everyone, as did Elie – and the rest of the Jews of Sighet. In Elie Wiesel’s original, Yiddish copy of Night, he describes the experience of the Jews of Sighet before the Holocaust affects him: "In the beginning there was faith--which is childish; trust--which is vain; and illusion--which is dangerous" (Wiesel, “Preface” x). Significant traits of childhood innocence include trust, curiosity, and most importantly, belief, which are all exhibited by the Jews of Sighet. Not only did they have faith and trust in the world and the people in it, but most importantly, they had trust in God, proving the connection between innocence and faith. Before Elie experiences the Holocaust and loses his childhood innocence, he is devoted to his

Unfortunately, Elie has seen numerous occasions where violence has occurred because of survival instincts. An example happens on a train with multiple wagons carrying Jews to a concentration camp that stops in a German town early in the morning. As German laborers are walking to work, one worker throws a piece of bread into a wagon. Almost everyone fights over the piece of bread as food is scarce and the Jews are starved. Finding the brawl amusing to watch, nearby passers-by and other workmen throw additional bread. Following this, chaos ensues in the wagons. While staying out of the fights himself, Elie sees one where an old man grabs some bread but dies at the hands of his son: ”The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and began to devour it" (101). Desperate, someone killed his own father without any hesitation just for a small crust of bread despite being raised by his father and most likely seeing him every day. Although Elie witnesses deaths before this incident, he has never seen someone kill their own family member for a tiny piece of food. A major part of childhood innocence is the belief that the world is a wonderful place where no one becomes hurt, and seeing someone kill their father and the Nazis kill others would destroy that childhood innocence. Furthermore, Elie did not think much of this killing as he witnesses death every