Elie Wiesel Discrimination Quotes

Discrimination is a tactic people use to show dominance over a group of people they find inferior. Discrimination invokes fear and distrust in the people it is inflicted on. During World War II, discrimination was the driving force of the fighting. While Hitler was in power, he instilled antisemitic ideas into the mind of his people. This led to the majority of the Jewish population of Europe being put in concentration camps, to be tortured, and or killed. Elie Wiesel, a man born and raised Jewish was sent to numerous concentration camps over the course of his early teens. His goal with his writing is to teach readers the severity of World War II and to put forth an effort to help prevent similar events in the future. He recounts his experience

When Elie’s father starts praying Elie finally realizes how his god has stayed silent throughout all of the brutality,“‘May His Name be blessed and magnified…’ whispered my father. For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank him for?” (22). Just before this, Elie had just witnessed the mass murder of countless Jews. He believes he has no reason to worship a god who is said to protect people from harm when that promise hasn't been fulfilled thus far. He feels as though so much damage has been done to them, so he questions why they worship him at all. Second, Elie doesn’t fast for Rosh Hashanah, “I did not fast, mainly to please my father, who had forbidden me to do so. But further, there was no longer any reason why I should fast. I no longer accepted God’s silence”(46). Rosh Hashanah is the day that celebrates the day God created the world in the Jewish

When they arrived at their first camp it was announced that they were to be split up by gender. Women to the right, Men to the left. Separating Elie from his mother and sister, which leaves him with his father, “I did not know, in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever. I went on walking. My father held on to my hand,” (19). Elie and His father were never close before this, but they still held onto each other because they were alone without each other. They were the only family they had. Furthermore, at the end of Elie and his father’s journey to Buchenwald, Elie’s father gets caught in the crowd, but Elie keeps going. Eventually they reach the camp which leads Elie to look for him, “I went to look for him. But at the same moment, this thought came into my mind: ‘Don’t let me find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own