Loss Of Faith In Night By Elie Wiesel

When faced with a crisis, most people lose faith in everything they have. This is what took place in Jewish lives during the Holocaust. Those who were forced into concentration camps were starved, worked to death, beaten, tortured, and many of them were unable to survive. Even though they went through hell and back, there were people who sustained their faith and helped others. Most prisoners in the concentration camp shut down because they were pushed way beyond their comfort zones, while others continued to fight because they decided that their will to live was much stronger than the threats they faced.

Everyone struggles with self identity. It is a normal part of growing up, and Elie was only 16. Scientific American says “Teens are notoriously

As a religion rooted deeply in their faith in God, the experience they were forced into caused even the strongest rabbis to begin to question and doubt God’s existence and faithfulness. These people had been taught their whole lives that God was the master of the universe, and they were very comfortable with the lives He had provided them with. Now, they were witnessing their closest friends and family being tortured, killed, and worked or starved to death. They were conflicted; why would such a merciful God allow these things to happen to them? They made the internal decision to shut down and determined that God had left them. Viktor Frankl, a survivor himself, explains this concept in his article, The Question of God. he says, “Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis, it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him — mentally and spiritually.” (Frankl 1). He explains that despite the condition of their lives, humans ultimately have the decision of how they handle the situation. Those who gave up on God and life did so because they decided that

He writes about how everyone had a choice. “That everyone in the concentration camp had the choice to submit and give up, to lose themselves, their inner freedom” (Frankl 1). Even if a person is put through severe physical and psychological conditions the kind of person they become is of an inner decision. Even when the Jews were beaten and starving there were those who still helped others, like giving up a piece of bread and encouraging them. Frankl also addresses how suffering and death is part of the human life. “ The way the man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails even under the most difficult circumstances add a deeper meaning to his life” (Frankl 1). Frankl describes that it was the moment where a man could show he was human and not like the animal the Nazi made them out to be. There are those looking at death in the eye every day like the sick. They are told that they only have so much time to live yet you see them living the life they were given. “ Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death” (Frankl 1). Frankl shows that even when he was forced to run for miles being beaten on the way that all he thought was of his wife. All he could think about was the love he had for her. He said that when he look to the stars all he saw and heard was her. He