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Elie Wiesel Essays
Lasting effects of the holocaust on survivors
How did the holocaust affect the everyday lives of those who survived
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Just like other Jews, Eliezer's faith begins to falter by watching others be harshly treated, like himself, and viewing the horrific death of innumerable innocent lives. In the beginning, the 12 year old Eliezer starts out immensely religious, he's determined to learn more about the Torah and his own religion overall. However, when Eliezer and his family get taken to death camps, he begins to question his faith. As the days pass by, Elie Wiesel's faith
At this point in Night, Elie is slowly starting to question his faith in humanity. Spoken in chapter three after seeing and experiencing so many cruel things, he is losing his trust in God and in people. When they had first arrived at Birkenau, women and men were separated into two different groups. Following his father, Elie had come face to face with the crematories(machines where people were burned alive). Upon seeing the crematories, Elie had spoken the first part of the quote, revealing his deteriorating faith and disbelief.
Elie Wiesel, the writer of the novel Night, based the book on his experience and the observations he made during his time in a Nazi concentration camp. The prisoners fought to make it through for their families with the chance of seeing them again. The prisoners thought that the entire event was God testing their faith and whether or not they would still praise him after all was over. Concentration camp prisoners did not have the will to live, but continued to live in hopes of liberation, reuniting with their families, and keeping their faith in God. Although Wiesel lost his faith early on in the book, many of the Jews still maintained their faith because they could not comprehend that what was going on in their lives was something purely
The Holocaust affects Jews in a way that seems unimaginable, and most of these effects seem to have been universal experiences; however, in the matter of faith, Jews in the concentration camp described in Elie Wiesel’s Night are affected differently and at different rates. The main character, Elie, loses his faith quickly after the sights he witnesses (as well as many others); other Jews hold on much longer and still pray in the face of total destruction. In the beginning, all of the Jews are more or less equally faithful in their God and religion.
According to mahatma gandhi the word “Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into” (“Mahatma”). This can be seen in Elie Wiesel's memoir night through himself. As the memoir opens we learn that he was 15 during ww2 and that him and his father were put into a concentration camp. Elie Wiesel's, night, i belive experiences his loss of faith through this holocaust.
Genocides test their victims not only physically, but also mentally and spiritually. This was observed during the Holocaust, where the “lucky” survivors at the concentration camps had to come to terms between their reality and their idea of faith. Author and survivor, Elie Wiesel, shows this in his memoir Night. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel shows that during these times of trouble, faith in humanity was more insidious than the faith in God. Even though times of great prosperity, or of great ruin, turn men to faith as a cure-all, events such as the Holocaust spiritually exhausted their victims into a state of losing faith.
The Effect Faith Can Have in Survival Many would say that throughout the Holocaust there were numerous individuals who were stripped of their beliefs. Prisoners strayed from the basic path of their natural instincts. Individuals who at one time gave everything for a spiritual leader, now wept at the feet of an unconquerable enemy. Some people blamed god for their terrible circumstance while others held onto their beliefs.
Wiesel and other Jews in the concentration camps had many warning of what was to come, especially from the previous survivors of the Nazi camps. In fact, the new arrivals, when they arrived in camp, were warned right away, by some older men, “‘You’ve had done better to have hanged yourselves where you were than come here. Didn’t you know what was in store for you at Auschwitz?... Do you see that chimney over there? …
People in the past years have been discriminated against, they were Jews and they were killed this event is called the Holocaust. An event where Jews were killed all because people had thoughts based on this religion, so stay and hear how certain aspects help people get through the Holocaust. The Holocaust is a time when obviously many millions were killed by people named Nazis all because they thought that the Jews were an inferior and bad race. Even though Jewish is not a race it is a religion. They were tortured and killed while families and friends watched knowing that they could not do anything to stop this madness.
Elie Wiesel uses many factors to display the horrors that took place at Auschwitz, but his use of Judaism and faith are by far the most prevalent and, in my opinion, the most meaningful. His transition from an ultra-orthodox Jew to an Atheist in such a short time period showcases the amount of trauma and dehumanization caused in order to put in motion such an upheaval. Elie Wiesel begins his memoir by describing himself as, “deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.” (3) With this statement, he is trying to articulate that at this point in time, Eliezer’s life was mainly comprised of his faith.
In Night by Elie Wiesel wrestles with the theme of faith during his experiences in the Holocaust. Before the Holocaust began, Elie had a very passionate and devoted relationship with God. At the beginning of the story, Elie claimed that he lived and breathed to pray to God when he said “Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live?
Elie Wiesel is not only a talented author but a survivor of the holocaust who documented his horrific experiences in his memoir “Night”. In the beginning of the book Elie Wiesel was one of the most religious people in his town of Saghet who had a dream of living a monastic life. However, as a result of the harrowing injustices he endured he continuously lost faith in his religion. Within the book the reader is reminded again and again that when extreme adversity is experienced, faith is often lost.
Faith or Fiction? Night is a memoir with a great focus towards faith and a child’s questioning of its existence. Elie Wiesel begins to trust God at a very young age, which left him needing to learn about his Jewish faith and beliefs. Once arriving in the concentration camps, Elie is faced with many questions towards how God could put such faith filled people through this dark tragedy. Faith in God is completely lost by Elie after surviving long term torture and abuse inside the German ‘worker’ camps.
Elie is scarred and will forever have to live with the constant reoccurring thoughts about all of the infants, children, and adults being burned alive; however, Elie is also angered knowing while these unimaginable events is happening around the Jews, there is still nothing happening from Gods end. Nevertheless, as the Jews stood around discussing their views on God in this time, Elie states,” I had ceased to pray” (45 emphasis added). Evidently Elie is losing faith to the point where it even leads to him to stop praying, he believes as though we cant pray to someone we are starting to lose belief in. Another example, is when the prisoners went to participate in a a solemn service, as they are listening to the service a saying starts replaying in Elies head, “ "Blessed be the Almighty…”(67). Hearing this lead to Elie
Eliezer was very close to god and wanted to learn anything he could. Once he was taken away from his home, he began losing faith in god and lost all hope. Eliezer stopped praying and he believed that god was unjust. Eliezer felt as though god was uncaring and so he stopped believing in him. His view on god changed juristically throughout Night.