Elie Wiesel's Life During The Holocaust

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Over the course of World War Two, the Nazis murdered over six million Jews. Killing factories known as concentration camps exterminated Jews and other enemies of the Nazis throughout Europe. Hitler used these camps to eliminate anybody who threatened the ‘perfect Aryan race’ that he wished to create.The deadliest camp of all was known as Auschwitz, and it is where a fifteen year old Elie Wiesel is brought in 1944. He remained in concentration camps until their liberation in 1945. By the end of World War Two, Wiesel was desensitized and lost his faith in God and humanity after experiencing unspeakable horrors, such as the execution of children and the death of his father.
As a child, Elie Wiesel is deeply religious. He spends much of his …show more content…

Families are torn apart left and right during the Holocaust, and Wiesel will not to let that happen to him and his father. As he loses faith in his religion and humanity, he still has faith in family. Nothing matters to Elie in the camps, “I was not thinking about death, but I did not want to be separated from my father”(Wiesel 78). Wiesel only cares about his father. Even while faced with the difficult decision of remaining in the hospital or leaving with the camp, Wiesel’s main concern is his father. Wiesel lost faith in humanity and his will to live after his father’s …show more content…

It is here that Wiesel’s father dies of dysentery. Wiesel tries to help him, and stay with him as long as he could. However, the Nazi’s did not want his father to speak, and every time he cried out for Wiesel, he was beat. On January 28th, 1945, he died. “His last words were my name. A summons, to which I did not respond.” (Wiesel 106). The evil Wiesel experiences in Buna is unlike any other. The Nazi’s kept Wiesel and his dying father apart in their last moments.
When his father is struck, Wiesel is powerless to stop it. “My body was afraid of also receiving a blow” (Wiesel 106).Wiesel knows the only person he can save is himself, so he ignores his father’s cries. After his death, Wiesel did not cry, “and it pained {him} that {he} could not weep” (Wiesel 106). Death was a constant in the camps, to a point where Wiesel is painfully used to it. Wiesel dehumanized other people because of his own need to survive. It is a kill or be killed situation in the camps. Wiesel could not even weep over the loss of his father, as his spirit was so