Differences And Similarities Between Night And Elie Wiesel

Alfred Münzer was born on November 23rd, 1941 in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. In the summer of 1942, when he was a year old, his father received summons for work duty, which entailed going to a camp. In response to this Alfred's family decided it would be best for the family to separate and hide, as it would give their children a chance to survive even if they were to be found. Alfred’s parents found refuge in a psychiatric hospital, his father as a patient, and his mother as a nurse, where, on December 31st, 1942, New Year’s Eve, all 250 hiding patients were arrested by the Nazis. Alfred’s sisters would follow suit after being shifted through multiple homes, and would consequently perish after being given up to the Nazis. Alfred would first

Elie and Alfred suffer in different ways and face different losses during WWII. Elie’s suffering began when he was interned in the concentration camps with his father when he was 15, while Alfred’s suffering began when he was separated from his entire family and placed into hiding when he was only one year old. Elie struggled in the camps for one year, while Alfred was in hiding for around two and a half. Elie lost his mother and one of his three sisters, while Alfred lost both of his sisters. Despite these differences, both acknowledge the role of chance in their survival. Right before Elie and his father were rounded up for the camps, a family member had heard tapping on the window but, being boarded up, no one was able to investigate quickly enough. Ellie explains, “ It was only after the war that I had found out who had knocked that night. It was an inspector of the Hungarian police, a friend of my father’s… Had he been able to speak to us that night, we might have still been able to flee” (Wiesel, 14). He acknowledges that because of bad luck, he and his family were not warned in time of the danger they would eventually face. On another occasion, Elie and his father are offered a choice to stay behind in the infirmary or evacuate with the rest of the prisoners. Elie chooses to evacuate. Elie shares, “After the war, I learned the fate of those who had remained at the infirmary. They were, quite simply, liberated by the Russians, two days after the evacuation”(Weisel, 82). In this case, Elie had no idea which option was to be better, being evacuated, or staying in the camps. In this way, it was up to chance that his eventual decision wouldn’t end up being the best one. However, Elie also acknowledges the many times that he was fortunate in his survival. While Elie was working in the camps, one of the doctors demanded his gold crown be extracted by a dentist. Elie managed