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Faith And Belief In Elie Wiesel's Night

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“You don’t understand...You cannot understand. I was saved miraculously. I succeeded in coming back. Where did I get my strength? I wanted to return to Sighet to describe to you my death so that you might ready yourselves while there is still time...I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me...This was towards the end of 1942”(7). The pattern of faith and belief in Elie Wiesel’s Night is intertwined with the pattern of denial the Jews have throughout the book. In Night, Wiesel has times where the Jews are very optimistic of situations they 're in, even though they shouldn’t be, and the reason for most of their optimism comes from their belief in a god, which is a curse and a blessing. During the start of the book, the …show more content…

The Jews realize that the possibility of being burned or killed was very likely. Wiesel writes, “We stood stunned, petrified. Could this be just a nightmare? An unimaginable nightmare? I heard whispers around me: “We must do something. We can’t let them kill us like that, like cattle in the slaughterhouse. We must revolt.” ...There were, among us, a few tough young men. They actually had knives and were urging to attack the armed guards...But the older men begged their sons not to be foolish: “We mustn 't give up hope, even now as the sword hangs over our heads” (31). Even after experiencing the harshness of the situation, some of the Jews still think they can defeat and escape the German Concentration Camps, even though they don’t understand that there is no escaping, and resistance is futile . Rebelling would’ve been the most naive thing to do, since it would’ve failed, and would have had every Jew on that train car killed. This shows that even when the Jews see the reality of the situation, they don 't want to believe it and choose to be optimistic, which could be blamed on their religion, which grants the Jews a very positive and optimistic outcome on living. However, the Jews and Elie’s belief and faith throughout the book slowly dissipates, as they continue living under the control of the Nazis. On the other hand, some …show more content…

Belief and Faith is a “double-edged sword” to the jews, it cuts both ways. It keeps them alive, and at the same time makes them oblivious, and leads to their suffering. Over time, Elie’s belief in god, diminishes and eventually he questions God’s existence extensively and at point, Elie is infuriated that even though they are being tormented and enslaved, the Jews will still pray to god, and thank him, “If god did exist, why would he let u go through all the pain and suffering (33). This is a major point in the ongoing theme of faith and belief, because for once he is infuriated with the thought of religion in a time of suffering. Throughout the book, with the nazis ultimate goal is to break the jews and make dehumanize them and if anything, their goal is take and diminish their belief. The torturing and suffering caused is what widdles down the belief, and this present throughout the novel. Only the strong and the ones who have most faith would survive, yet at the same time, if they didn’t originally have faith, they could’ve avoided the concentration camps

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In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer Wiesel narrates the legendary tale of what happened to him and his father during the Holocaust. In the introduction, Wiesel talks about how his village in Seghet was never worried about the war until it was too late. Wiesel’s village received advanced notice of the Germans, but the whole village ignored it. Throughout the entire account, Wiesel has many traits that are key to his survival in the concertation camps.

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Jay Patel Mrs.Eisenbeis English 2BH Period 1 February 2016 Night Essay The Holocaust was a tough and terrible time for the Jewish people, they struggled to survive, and the ones that did are telling their story today. The book “Night” is a memoir written by Elie Wiesel. The book is about the main character Elie Wiesel, and how Eliezer’s family are from a small town, put in a concentration camp after being separated. Elie goes with his father and they both have to survive the harshness of Auschwitz.

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In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.

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In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people.

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Wiesel's loss of faith was brought on by the absence of God. This resulted in him questioning why it was God's will to allow Jews to suffer and die the way they had. Another portrayal of religious confliction within Wiesel was the statement of his faith being consumed by the flames along with the corpses of children (Wiesel 34). Therefore, he no longer believed God was the almighty savior everyone had set Him out to be or even present before them. To conclude, his experiences within Nazi confinement changed what he believed in and caused him to change how he thought and began questioning God because of the actions He allowed to take

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Have you have ever been there when a family member died, or been treated so cruelly that you lost your faith in something that you never thought you could lose faith in? In the book Night by Elie Wiesel is about his story of surviving the Holocaust. The Germans took everything the Jews had. The Germans took away their pride, family, and all of their possessions. The one thing that they couldn’t take away was their faith, or so the Jews thought.

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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

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Elie, once so faithful, is one of the first to lose faith in God due to the horrific sights he sees. After witnessing the bodies of Jewish children being burned, Wiesel writes, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” (34). He quite understandably has begun to doubt that his God is with him following the sight of the supposedly chosen people’s bodies being unceremoniously burned. Elie, though, was perhaps not a member of the masses with this belief; in fact, some men were able to hold on to their beliefs despite these horrendous sights. Also near the middle of the book, Wiesel reflects on the faith of other Jews in the face of these events, saying that “some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come.

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At the beginning of Night, Elie was someone who believed fervently in his religion. His experiences at Auschwitz and other camps, such as Birkenau and Buna have affected his faith immensely. Elie started to lose his faith when he and his father arrived at Birkenau. They saw the enormous flames rising from a ditch, with people being thrown in.

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Imagine believing so strongly in something and then being let down, or thinking that you were wrong to believe. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie felt as though he had lost his religion and beliefs. “I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep of the destruction of the Temple,” (Wiesel, 14). This quote shows how strongly he believed before experiencing the hardships of the Holocaust

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It is a common assumption among numerous people in the world that the Holocaust never existed. In fact, almost fifty percent of the world population never even heard of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel helped people around the world learn about the Holocaust through his book “Night.” He wanted people to see the bravery, courage, and guilt of the Jews through his book. “Night” shows the horrific and malicious acts in the German concentration camps during the Holocaust.

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The Holocaust and its memories is a touchy subject and can sometimes be accused of not having its full validity and truthfulness. Some accuse Elie Wiesel’s Night to be made up or exaggerated, while others believe everything that is said in the book really happened. In my opinion, Elie Wiesel’s Night was not a total lie or fabrication, but I do believe some of it was exaggerated out of fear, hallucination, paranoia, etc. After discussing all of his experiences and struggles throughout the Holocaust, there are some aspects of the story that can be questionable to the reader.

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As much as Jew’s wanted to speak for themselves, or even save others, this wasn’t possible due to their fear of winning them causing silence. In the Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, shows how Wiesel’s experience was during this harsh time in his life as a teenager. During this experience, Wiesel discovers how others, also including him, decided to remain silent as a result of their fear, causing some choices to be avoided and not made. To sum up, Wiesel’s experience portrays that fear always wins and causes others to be silent. Throughout this experience, Wiesel meets another person who is going through the same situation as him.

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In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when he questioned God, ¨Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled, he caused thousands of children to burn his Mass graves?¨(Wiesel 68). Overall, Wiesel does not follow the words of God and is not believing in him anymore because he thinks God is the one thatś letting all the inhumanity occur. One theme in Night is that inhumanity can cause disbelief or incredulity.

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The cruelty of the German officers at the concentration camps change Elie’s personality throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Elie is deeply religious and spends most of his time studying Judaism. However, by the end of the novel, Elie believes that God has been unjust to him and all the other Jews, and has lost most of his faith. The cruelty of the German officers also changed the other Jews as well. The events of the Holocaust forces the prisoners to fend for themselves, and not help others.

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