Living And Dying In Night By Elie Wiesel

PBS, North Carolina, estimates that the average human makes 35,000 decisions a day. However, what if those decisions were the difference between living and dying? In Elie’s case, his every move is the difference between living and dying. Elie is a young Romanian Jew living in World War II. He shares the hardships and horrors he endures while in the ghetto and at Nazi concentration camps where the Jews are constantly alienated and treated terribly. Elie Wiesel depicts many unthinkable events, such as the hanging of a young child and seeing infants thrown into a crematorium. These events cause him to lose his innocence at the mere age of sixteen. As a result, Elie does everything he can not to end up dead. He frequently makes difficult decisions

Elie and his family arrive at Auschwitz, and they are immediately divided by gender, Elie is left with his father and commits to staying with him. A prisoner tells them to lie about their age, when a SS officer asks Elie how old he is, he quickly says, “I’m eighteen”(32 Wiesel). Then the officer unexpectedly asks him his profession, Elie confidently states “Farmer”(32 Wiesel). While saying farmer saved his life, Elie is still worried about his father’s and when he is sent to the same line as Elie, he is greatly relieved, “The baton pointed to the left. I took a half step forward. I first wanted to see where they would send my father. Were he to have gone to the right I would have run after him. The baton, once more moved to the left. A weight lifted from my heart”(32 Wiesel). Elie’s quick wittiness allows him to continue in the camp instead of going straight to the crematorium. This moment displays how one simple number changes the fate of Elie and his father. However, Elie thinks radically, not always

Elie is in the infirmary with an infected foot, as imaginable, the conditions in Auschwitz were atrocious, so infections were common. Elie and his father learn that the camp was going to be evacuated to another concentration camp but those in the infirmary would stay, as they were too weak to make the journey. Elie believes that if he were to stay in the infirmary with his father they would be killed as the evacuation takes place. He goes to his father and asks him what he thinks; “Well father, what do we do?’ He was silent, ‘Let’s be evacuated with the others,’ I said. He didn’t answer. He was looking at my foot. ‘You think you’ll be able to walk?’ ‘Yes, I think so.’ ‘Let’s hope we won’t regret it Eliezer”(82 Wiesel). Elie later goes on to reveal that those who stayed in the infirmary were liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation. While this wrong decision does not necessarily kill Elie or his father, it causes them physical and mental pain. They must run twelve miles to another camp which severely damages their malnourished bodies. Also leading some Jews to become suicidal, at times even Elie “The idea of dying began to fascinate me. To no longer exist. To no longer feel the excruciating pain of my foot. To no longer feel anything”(86 Wiesel). After this event Elie and his father are never the same, Elie’s foot gets