Loss Of Religion In The Book Night By Elie Wiesel

The holocaust was one of the most devastating events that more than six million Jews lost their lives to. After the events of the second world war the population of Jews around the world was less than four millions. Among the very few people that survived the concentration/elimination camps Eliezer Wiesel was among them. While many people wanted to forget and never talk about the events of the second world war, Wiesel wants the whole world to know what atrocities the Nazis put the Jews through. So in the novel Night by Eliezer Wiesel, the author demonstrates the destruction caused by the Nazis in the Holocaust through the themes of family,faith and strength. The Nazis destroyed millions of Jewish families with their actions. Wiesel very well

Elie is first introduced as a God fearing boy who equates praying to breathing. As Wiesel writes in the novel “Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”(Wiesel,4) but Elie still wants a close relationship with God. In the novel, Elie tells his father that he wants a master to guide his studies of kabbalah but his father is reduced. Despect that Elie still found a way to increase his understanding of God. But as Elie and his father are subjected to increasingly horrific conditions in the concentration camps, Elie begins to question his belief in God and how he could allow such atrocities to occur. As Elie's faith in God is being tested, Elie continues to hold onto his humanity and compassion for others. For example, when Elie witnessed the execution of the young pipel, Wiesel writes “That night, the soup tasted of corpse.” (Wiesel,65) The night of the execution Elie is filled with rage and despair, yet he also recognizes the young pipel’s innocence. This shows that even in the mist of unimaginable suffering, Elie maintained his faith in humanity. Towards the end of the novel, Elie says “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed”(Wiesel,91) which gives a clear view of where he stands in his faith with God. Elie may have lost his faith in God but he still tries to hold onto his compassion for others despite

Throughout the novel, Elie and the other prisoners are subjected to unimaginable suffering and brutality from the Nazi. The prisoners are forced to endure starvation, disease, and brutal beatings, yet they find the strength to keep going. Even with the little to no food the prisoners are given, they use it to keep their strength up to work in the concentration camps.Their physical strength was constantly what was keeping them alive. In the novel when Dr. Mengele comes for the selection and their Blockälteste tells them that “...But you must try to increase your chances….”(Wiesel 71) The Blockälteste knew in order to stay alive in the concentration camp you must be physically strong. Wiesel shows how the human spirit can persevere even in the face of unimaginable cruelty. Like when Béla Katz was “...chosen because of his strength, he had been forced to place his own father's body into the furnace.”(Wiesel, 35) Any child shouldn't have to go through that, but the Nazi never saw the Jews as humans but as animals. The resilience that the Jews exhibited during such overwhelming brutality at the hands of the Nazis is amazing. For example, when Elie’s father was being beaten by a Kapo "Eliezer” (Wiesel,111) his son was who he called out to cause his emotional strength. This shows where the Jews were getting their strength to keep