Commentary On The Book Night By Elie Wiesel

The world sat by in silence, as crimes against humanity were being committed. “Every man for themselves,” is what the world responded, to those who were enslaved, tortured, and discriminated against. The book, “Night” by Elie Wiesel, recalls the details of the torture he endured. Elie lost his family, friends, faith, and will to live, in a matter of 2 years. Imagine how others, who were in the same position as Elie, felt. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights responded to the cries of people, like Elie, with Article 2, 4, and 5, against discrimination, slavery, and torture. Discrimination is the act of being openly judged based on your race, skin color, sex, language, religion, opinion, family

They were our first faces of hell and death.” Oppress, according to the Merriam- Webster’s Intermediate Dictionary, means “to control or rule in a harsh or cruel way”. It is also said by a Hungarian officer, “From this moment on, you come under the authority of the German army.” This is a case of slavery, because the Germans claimed to have control over the Jews. The Hungarian officers, S.S. officers, and other officers at the camp made Jews abide by their cruel rules and put them to work in blocks, in harsh conditions, violating Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Torture can be physically or verbally, but in “Night”, the torture experienced, by those in the concentration camps, were physically, mentally, and verbally. Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the “Child- Friendly Version”, titled “Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment”, says, “No one has the right to torture, harm, or humiliate you”. Yet, when Moshé the Beadle came back to Sighet to describe what he had seen, he said, “Babies were thrown into the air and the machine gunners used them as targets.” This was harm to an innocent life, degrading them to merely “targets.” Elie recalls what the men had to wear and said, “Within a few seconds, we ceased to be men.” It takes a lifetime to build a man’s pride, filled by accomplishments of their life, yet it took only three seconds to be humiliated. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was established in 1948; three years after the end of the Holocaust. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a set of rules that protect the rights of every human, on every continent. The Human Rights determine what is right and what is wrong, and what is humane and what is inhumane. Though the articles were technically not violated, because it was established after the events of the Holocaust, what was broken was what is morally right.