Comparing Night 'And First They Came'

Night tells Elie Wiesel’s story of his experiences during the Holocaust as a Jew. “First They Came” by Martin Niemoller tells of his experience during the Holocaust as a German citizen. Both works explore life within the Holocaust and how indifference was felt to them. However, there are differences between their positions within the Holocaust and how they ended up in concentration camps. These similarities and differences help readers see the importance of not being indifferent and the effects that indifference can have. Both men ended up in concentration camps, but they had different reasons for being in the concentration camps. Wiesel was in the concentration camps because he was a Jew while Niemoller ended up in a concentration camp when

Of what, did you die?” Wiesel portrays how he and his family and others were there not because of something they did but because of who they were. Niemoller ended up in a concentration camp after he started to oppose Nazism and what they were doing within concentration camps and spoke out. Niemoller writes in his poem, “First They Came” of what happened when the Nazis came after him, he says, “there was no one left to speak for me”. He attributes what happened to his inaction at the

He uses repetition to portray his experience and how he kept silent because what the Nazis were doing did not affect him. When viewing Wiesel and his work, Night, it provides a viewpoint of the horrors of the Holocaust and how it had affected him. Wiesel writes of how they were treated like animals, specifically using this text,”And the spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread.” People would view Wiesel and other Jews as animals and toss them food like people do to animals at the zoo. Both works portray how their identities during the Holocaust influence the experiences they had with indifference and ignorance. Niemoller was one of the ignorant Germans who had no clue to how the Jews and others had suffered and his work is centered around his guilt for being indifferent to the sufferings happening. On the other hand, Wiesel portrays the view of the one who is the victim of indifference. They highlight what happens when one is indifferent and does not speak up for injustice that is happening and how it can lead to horrible