Essay On Night By Elie Wiesel

During the second World War there many camps establish throughout both the U.S and Europe; these camps where consisted on concentration camps and internment camps which were both made for the purpose of imprisoning or holding many people. We learned of the concentrations camps from the book; Night by Elie Wiesel. This story is a first person account of the life within the confines of a concentration camp from the eyes of Elie himself. Both concentration camps and internment camps were terrible, unethical places during the war, but the suffering caused by them was not enclosed to the camps themselves. While the Japanese internment camps were originally established for containment during the war, the concentration camps were originally made

Living inside a concentration camp came with meager rations of bread and poor soup that could barely sustain a person, and terrible treatment from both guards and other prisoners alike. These conditions changed people, drastically, as show from exerts of Night. “My faceless neighbor spoke up: “Don’t be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve”” (Wiesel 76 ) This is an example of how living within the confinement of the concentration camp not only damaged people physically, but mentally. Even to an extent of completely giving in and losing all hope. The exert from Night “Next to him lay his violin, an eerily poignant little corpse.” (Wiesel 91) also shows how some people lost all sense of courtesy and only focused on one thing, self preservation. On the other hand, life was much different in the American internment camp from that of the life in concentration camps. Despite still being prisoners, forced to leave their homes due to suspicion, the Japanese people who inhabited the camps were able to make the most of their lives in the camps after the given time needed to adjust. An example of this is “Inside the apartment, internees improvised by making shelves and furniture from whatever scraps could be found.” (Oregon Responds) As well as, from some accounts the conditions of the

In the early days of 1945, the Japanese held in the internment camps were given the right to return to their former homes. However what they returned to was not a happy sight. Many Japanese owned homes and businesses were vandalized and mutilated, sometimes with such phrases as, “No Japs wanted”. While for the Jewish population there was also still discrimination, but at a more drastic level. Many Jews feared returning home after the war scared for their lives, and for good reason. After the liberation of the concentration camps there were many Anti-Jewish riots, especially in Poland. One riot that occurred in Poland resulted with the deaths of 42 people and many more wounded. Many others, now homeless, emigrated to the west and were housed in refugee centers. In the aftermath of the war the former prisoners were not the only mass of people to suffer. “Meanwhile, the Allies forced the local German Population to confront the crimes committed on their doorstep.” (Goeschel 516) Even after the war ended Germany continued to be occupied and controlled by four Allied powers, only ending ten years afterwards in 1955. During this time many Nazi leaders and officers were arrested and punished, some were even sentenced to the death penalty, as a result of the crimes committed in the concentration camps. In the aftermath of a horrific war