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Examples Of Choiceless Choices In Night By Elie Wiesel

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Surviving a series of Choiceless Choices The appointment of Adolf Hitler to chancellor sparked one of the darkest times in recent human history. Under his rule, Jews and others not seen as “pure” by the nazi ideology were first crammed into ghettos and months later, forced into concentration camps. In the nonfiction novel titled Night by Elie Wiesel, the narrator, Elie himself, describes the extreme hardships faced by prisoners at these camps. Prisoners not killed on arrival had mandatory labor and lived off small rations of bread and soup. The prisoners were constantly faced with choiceless choices, situations where both options are a loss. Despite all this, some prisoners, such as Elie Wiesel, found a way to survive. Knowing that the Soviet …show more content…

Kapos chosen by SS guards were always in “perfect physical condition” (Pg 72). The Kapos were instructed to keep absolute control over their camps, which meant carrying out gruesome tasks such as choosing who would get food, giving out ruthless beatings, and, worst of all, “killing a certain number of prisoners every day. And every week - selection. A merciless selection,” (Pg 70). Many Kapos felt immense guilt and remorse as they beat and massacred their fellow prisoners, with the only solution to terminate this nightmare being death for …show more content…

This result was accomplished due to his profound resiliency and an incredible amount of luck. Elie’s greatest test of his resilience was the death march. On top of not being fed or given any time to rest, Elie’s foot was in terrible condition, and he felt it throb with every step. Elie knew that ceasing to run would cause an immediate death that would end his suffering, but his will to live for himself and his father fueled him with the motivation to march on. One of many examples of luck was on arriving at Auschwitz; prisoners were sent to one of two lines. Elie and his father were directed to the line on the left, which they soon found out was headed to the crematoria. Elie and his father slowly approached the pit one step at a time until “Two steps from the pit, we were ordered to turn left and head to the barracks,” (Pg 34). Against all odds, Elie narrowly escapes the crematoria along with his father after being just a few steps away by virtue of an incredible amount of

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After observing the novel Night, we can perceive that Elie’s self- will, his motivation to live, is the major factor to Elie’s survival or anyone's survival. Which is happens to be crucial because those who do not posses self-will like Elie will end up dead not because of the SS officers because they gave up when the things got rough. Elie would be the

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The prisoners were in constant fear of death. When they first arrived and during selections, they didn’t know if they were going to be selected for the crematory. The prisoners were also beaten for no reason. It became so normal that Elie was not phased when he stated “I let the SS beat my father, I left him alone in the clutches of death”(page xii). Then when reading a sign stating “DANGER” Elie says “Was there a single place where one is not in danger of death?”(Page 40).

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I was not thinking about death, but about not wanting to be separated from my father. We had already suffered so much, endured so much together. This was not the moment to be separate” (82). Last, Elie found himself exhausted after running for hours through harsh weather conditions as their camp was evacuated without notice. He had no power to move on.

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In this book Elie speaks of his hardships and how he survived the concentration camps. Elie quickly changed into a sorrowful person, but despite that he was determined to stay alive no matter the cost. For instance, during the death

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Wiesel’s Survival The Holocaust was arguably the most devastating massacre against humanity in the past century. It is estimated that up to six million Jews were annihilated in this atrocious event. In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel explains the struggles he endured in order to escape the Holocaust alive.

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Lives reduced to choices without a possibility of a good outcome, the imminent and constant fight between life and death. Throughout the Holocaust Jewish people faced a multitude of choiceless choices induced by the terrible atrocities inflicted by Nazi Germany. “Choiceless choice” is a term fabricated by Lawrence Langer to better describe decisions lacking a bright side the Jews faced throughout the duration of the Holocaust. In Night, a memoir by a Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, he explains the terrible circumstances Nazi Germany and Hitler forced him and many Jews of Europe to suffer, and the choiceless choices he was forced to make in these situations. He was involuntarily put into situations where he needed to go against his morals to simply survive.

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Elie, along with his father and the other prisoners, are put through unimaginable conditions. However, somehow, he is able to persevere and overcome the numerous obstacles thrown at him. For example, when Elie is caught wandering in the warehouse, he is severely beaten and publicly humiliated. Also, he watches countless souls perish in ungodly ways, but doesn’t lose hope, or at least doesn’t lose determination to survive.

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“I had neither the desire to nor the resolve to get up. Yet I obeyed”(88). This can show some of Elie's endurance and integrity. Despite not even having the drive or motivation to stand he did it because he knew it was better than death and laying down in the snow. One more time Elie sought out advice and presented his perseverance.

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Elie was ready to head to the barracks when his father suddenly collapsed onto the ground and said, "I can't anymore... It's over... I shall die right here..."

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Personal choices help define who a person becomes. Some choices are more important than others, but they all have outcomes that can affect and influence an individual. In the memoir, Night, by Elie Weisel, Weisel writes about the many choiceless choices he endures while at the concentration camps. Weisel’s choiceless choices revolve around making decisions that determine if he and his father survive. Weisel makes choiceless choices such as: lying about his age, deciding to leave camp instead of staying behind, and choosing to feed himself or his father which develop into Weisel’s story of survival.

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Elie and everyone else in the camp were forced into certain Kommandos, had the choice of death or work, and had to choose if they would fast. With these choices and conditions, how do people survive? At the camps, there are Kommandos. These groups were to determine what work they would accomplish.

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Throughout the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer, the protagonist, is transported and moved to numerous concentration camps. His story, which is corresponding to Wiesel’s biography, is representative to the lives of a billion other Jews. Jews were stripped away from their families, beliefs, identity, and freedom. They could no longer express their faith in God or have the human right to live where desired. During the holocaust, nothing was fair, everything was dark and cruel.

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After going through so much, many people do not have the same mindset as they did before. Being tortured and watching others being tortured changes a person’s life, especially Elie’s, his father’s, Moshe the Beadle’s, and Rabbi Eliahou’s. Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, shares his own experience of going through a concentration camp, and it is clear that many things in his life changed

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Night Argumentative Essay Every great tragedy comes from the ones who perpetrate it. In Night, a memoir written by Elie Wiesel in 1958, Elie was a teenager when him, his family, and many other Jewish people were taken from their homes, and then transported to concentration camps where he never saw his sister and mother again. Elie explained how he, his father, and many other prisoners had to be starved, forced labor, developed disease, watched deaths of other prisoners, and much more. Throughout the years he was in the concentration camp he lost all hope, faith, strength, dignity, and almost his life.

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To find a man who has not experienced suffering is impossible; to have man without hardship is equally unfeasible. Such trials are a part of life and assert that one is alive by shaping one’s character. In the autobiographical memoir Night by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, this molding is depicted through Elie’s transformation concerning his identity, faith, and perspective. As a young boy, Elie and his fellow neighbors of Sighet, Romania were sent to Auschwitz, a macabre concentration camp with the sole motive of torturing and killing Jews like himself. There, Elie experiences unimaginable suffering, and upon liberation a year later, leaves as a transformed person.

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