Elie Wiesel Conflicts

During World War II, the Nazis destroyed millions of people’s lives including the life of a Jewish boy named Eliezer Wiesel. He was just 15 years old when the Nazis took him and his family from their home and forced them to live in the concentration camp, Auschwitz. During Elie’s stay at Auschwitz, he experiences unimaginable pain. He suffers through starvation, hypothermia, mental abuse, physical abuse, and worst of all he watches his father die. These external conflicts that Elie faces cause him to develop big internal conflicts including his struggle with religious faith, his difficulties being a son, and his fight to maintain humanity. Before Elie was taken to Auschwitz he had a strong and well-developed relationship with God. This is

When Elie first arrived at Auschwitz he greatly relied on and lived for his father. Throughout Elie’s time at the camp, his relationship with his Dad became strained because of the unlivable conditions. Elie turned into the type of son that he did not want to be. The first time Elie noticed this change within himself was when his dad was being beaten by the Kapos. Elie said, “I kept silent. In fact, I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What’s more, if I felt anger at the moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn’t he have avoided Idek’s wrath? That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me …” (p.54) Elie’s first thought when his dad was being beaten was to save himself, and his second thought was to be mad at his father even though it wasn't his fault. His dad was beaten simply because he asked to go to the bathroom. This event was when Elie truly began to resent his father. The Nazis indoctrinated him and others into believing that it was their own fault if they were beaten. After this event, Elie had to take care of his father because his father became very ill. He would do things like give his dad his own ration of soup and bread, so he could become stronger. Eventually, Elie became tired of taking care of his father, and when his dad finally died he said “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep

The concentration camp caused Elie to lose big parts of what makes people human. He lost his ability to mourn, his ability to care for others, and even his ability to think. After Elie arrived at the concentration camp he said, “The absent no longer entered our thoughts. No one spoke of them—who knows what happened to them?—but their fate was not on our minds. We were incapable of thinking. Our senses were numbed, 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. In one terrifying moment of lucidity, I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void, souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either.” p.36 Elie admits that he has lost many fundamental parts of being human. He and the other prisoners are unable to think about how they will never see their families again because all they could focus on was their own physical suffering. They lost their ability to mourn. They could not think about anything, even the people they love, because the camp put them in a trance-like state. They were like zombies going through the motions of their “life” every single day. Elie describes how it felt like they were walking through a void trying with everything they had to find hope, but they could find none. The abuse that Elie and the