Loss Of Faith In Night By Elie Wiesel

On the wall of a concentration camp cell, an unknown prisoner wrote, “If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness”. For many Holocaust survivors, this quote is true. In his memoir Night, Jewish Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel reflects on how he began to lose his faith in God during his time spent in the Holocaust. At the young age of fifteen, Wiesel was separated from his family and sent to the most notorious concentration camp in history. Before entering the concentration camps, Elie Wiesel had a strong relationship with God; however, due to experiencing the horrors of the Holocaust, Wiesel begins to doubt God and then give up on his faith.

Before entering the concentration camps, Wiesel had a strong relationship with God. Elie

When Wiesel first arrives at Auschwitz, he is welcomed with the sight of children being thrown into a burning pit. After observing this atrocity, Wiesel begins to realizes that "for the first time, [he] felt anger rising within [him]. Why should [he] sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for" (33). Wiesel is becoming confused and frustrated because God is choosing to be a bystander to the Holocaust and is tolerating the barbarous acts from the Nazi’s. Wiesel uses the word ‘silence’ to illustrate that God isn’t answering any of his prayers to save him and the other Jew’s. Wiesel is starting to inquiry what his devotion to God means. If God wouldn’t help him, then who would? This quote marks the beginning of Wiesel’s internal struggle with his faith. Elie reflects on when he first arrived to Auschwitz and how “the night had passed completely. The morning star shone in the sky. [He] too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child [he] was, had been consumed by the flames. All that was left was a shape that resembled [him]. [His] soul had been invaded- and devoured- by a black flame” (37). Wiesel used the symbolism of fire to demonstrate that his faith was also destroyed in the flames. When he says that the night has passed completely, he means that he had changed in

After witnessing an innocent child be hung, a prisoner rhetorically asks where God is. Wiesel heard a voice answer “where He is? This is where- hanging here from the gallows…” (65). The horror of witnessing a child being hung has destroyed Wiesel’s remaining faith in God. For Wiesel, his God had died alongside the child. If God had any mercy left in him, he wouldn’t have let an innocent boy be killed. While on the death march, Elie has a realization that “[the Jews’] were the masters of nature, the masters of the world. [The Jews’] had transcended everything- death, fatigue, [their] natural needs.” (87). Wiesel no longer sees God as the ‘Master of the Universe’. The Jews have now replaced the role God once held. The Holocaust prisoners have endured and persevered through horrifying experiences without the help of God. Wiesel is implying that the Jews couldn’t rely on God to save them, so they saved themselves. Earlier in his memoir when he is praying, Wiesel calls God the “Master of the Universe” (Wiesel 20). Before entering the concentration camps, Wiesel used this term to show that God is superior and a powerful figure. Nearing the end of the Holocaust, Wiesel uses the term to mock God. If God was truly the ‘Master of the Universe’ than the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened. Wiesel no longer welcomes God into his