How Does The Perception Of Religion Change In Night By Elie Wiesel

"Why should I bless His name? What had I to thank Him for?” (Wiesel, 23). “Taking refuge in a last bout of religiosity… I composed poems mainly to integrate myself with God”. (Kluger, 111). These two quotes from Elie Wiesel and Ruth Kluger, two holocaust survivors represent two opposing responses to the trauma of the holocaust. Both novels demonstrate the different religious struggles of two people of different backgrounds experiencing similar situations. Wiesel, a devout Jew, eventually rejects his faith altogether whereas Kluger, raised as a non-orthodox Jew, finds refuge in religion in the concentration camp. This essay will explore how Kluger and Wiesel’s perception of religion changes over the course of their experience in the holocaust.

Before Wiesel experiences the holocaust for himself, a prominent figure within Sighet and role model to Wiesel, Moshe the Beadle, is taken by Hungarian police. He lives to tell his experiences but Wiesel remarks how “Moshe had changed…He no longer talked to me of God or of the cabbala, but only of what he had seen” (Wiesel, 4). It appears Wiesel is trying to make a comment on how we cannot put ourselves into such extreme circumstances and comprehend the loss of faith; it is only until we live it ourselves that we can truly understand why one would abandon religious principles. Kluger also expresses a similar idea that her situation is incomparable. She invites the reader to analyze the situation and to bring oneself as fully as we can to her condition, however, it is impossible to fully relate. After enduring the merciless behavior of the Germans towards the Jews, on several occasions, Wiesel experiences loss of faith. “For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why

From a young age she rebels against her religion. Kluger criticizes the Jewish practices, claiming, "Recipes for gefilte fish are no recipe for coping with the Holocaust” (Kluger, 51). She does not want to follow rules of religion; she desires to break free from the norms and not live “within the confines of domestic functions” (Kluger, 51). Unlike Wiesel, who is eager to embrace the rules and his faith. In both novels the narrators experience a change in faith whilst in the camps. Kluger turns to religion and she sees this as her way of coping, expressed through poetry. During her time in Theresienstadt, although faced with chronic hunger and cold, she gets “swept up in (the Zionist group), because it simply made sense” (Kluger, 76). Kluger claims: “when I ask myself today how and why an unbeliever like me can call herself a Jew ‘It’s because of Theresienstadt. That is where I became a Jew’” (Kluger, 87). Unlike Wiesel, who lost his faith in the concentration