Examples Of Resilience In Night

Zeke Vanguardia

Mrs. O’Hagan

ELA 2

27 February 2023

Night Essay The Holocaust was an indescribable time in history, affecting millions of those innocent who were deemed unworthy by Nazi-German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, and his supposed perfect, Aryan race. Those considered unfit by the standards of the Aryan race, especially those of the Jewish race/religion, would undergo cruel, inhumane conditions and labor in concentration camps throughout Europe. In the novel, Night by Elie Wiesel, the author tells his personal account of his time spent throughout these concentration camps with his father. At such a young age, Elie and his family were forced out of their home and taken to a ghetto, where they would later be moved to Auschwitz Concentration

When thinking about the challenges imposed at the concentration camps, most would assume the labor, treatment, and living conditions, but Wiesel’s story unravels other elements. Throughout his story, Wiesel reveals that family and cruel treatment have a crucial effect on one’s resilience. Throughout the story Night, Wiesel displays how family has impacted the resilience of those around him. At the beginning of his and his father’s time in the concentration camps, a young Pole gives them advice crucial to their survival, stating, “And now, here is a prayer, or rather a piece of advice: let there be camaraderie among you. We are all brothers and share the same fate. The same smoke hovers over all our heads. Help each other. That is the only way to survive” (Wiesel 41). This signifies the need for a sense of community and family when going through the concentration camps, as it would help ease the hardships they would endure during their stay. Any status of a prisoner held no meaning in these camps; in the eyes of the Nazis, everyone was vulnerable to the fate of early death. This makes it ideal for them to have camaraderie with those amongst themselves, as they will

At the start of their time in the concentration camp Auschwitz, Elie and his father were separated from the rest of their family, which included his (Elie’s) mother and sisters. This is when Elie reveals his inner thoughts, “My hand tightened around its grip on my father. All I could think about was not to lose him. Not to remain alone” (Wiesel 30). After being separated from his mother and siblings, Elie was left with only his father. For all he knew, his father was the only person he had besides him in the camps, and by losing him, he would lose all hope and give in. Elie himself feared being left alone, and without his father, he would be left to his own devices. This moment in time illustrates how his father would give him resilience, as he was the only one Elie had left (at the time) who would provide him hope, aid, and support throughout their stay. This is one of the very first actions in which Elie hints that his father will be his driving motivation to keep pushing for survival, which we see later throughout the book. We see such a demonstration when Nazi officers had mistaken his (Elie’s) father as dead. In response, Elie yelled “No! He’s not dead! Not yet!”, and proceeded to hit his father harder and harder until his father had half-opened his eyes (Wiesel 99). This further portrays how much his father meant to Elie. As mentioned before, his father