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Concentration camps holocaust psychological impacts
Concentration camps holocaust psychological impacts
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In this book Elie speaks of his hardships and how he survived the concentration camps. Elie quickly changed into a sorrowful person, but despite that he was determined to stay alive no matter the cost. For instance, during the death
Over the course of the book, Elie changes from a happy boy to being depressed. This is important to the book as a whole because it connects to the internal conflict. The change is apparent when he gets moved to a concentration camp, when he’s separated from his family, and when his father dies. “We sensed that
During all of the struggles Elie gains a bit of life knowledge, and learns more emotions about himself. If this journey never happened Elie would still be focussing about his studies and not about his family. A fact Elie acquires during the holocaust is always to stay positive in hard times. An example of this is when Elie is running for miles and notices men giving up just makes Elie think about when he can sleep and eat at the next camp. When news comes that the Russians will save the prisoners, Elie keeps this as a positive and keeps thinking this horrifying journey will be over.
There are a few factors that help shape Elie’s identity. His faith is the biggest part of his life that shaped his identity. His relationship with his family helped to shape his identity. Moshe the Beadle helped shape Elie’s identity by helping him with studying the Kabbalah. Moshe the Beadle was also a role model and a father figure to Elie.
In chapters 4 to 6 in the novel, “Night”, Elie Wiesel and his father continue to suffer in the grasp of the Germans. Eventually, all the Jews are moved to a new work camp, Buna, where they are overworked and undernourished, and resort to killing each other for pieces of bread. In his old home, Elie had never experienced brutality and inhumanity within it. Now, Elie and other Jews witness extreme violence and an absence of mercy that begins to erode their mental state; bringing most men to animalistic tendencies. In chapter 4, the Jews arrive in Buna.
Finally, interactions with others shape who people become by molding their personalities and feelings. Once again, Elie was shaped by his interactions with others, specifically the Nazi’s. Elie’s personality and feelings were also majorly affected by his interactions with the Nazi’s at the concentration camp he and his family were once trapped at. He underwent a major shift in personality: “Never shall I forget the Nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live,” (Wiesel 37). This quote demonstrates that Wiesel’s was shaped into a whole different version of himself, with an adapted personality and feeling due to brutal, human interactions.
He showed the readers a personal view of the Nazi's treatment to the prisoners. The hell Elie went through in the camps is something that he will never forget. In contrast the dehumanization the jews received was very harsh it was something that changed their lives forever. They lost their possession, family,morality and their identity. Because of the strength Elie had through this horrible experience he has gained a stronger
In the beginning of Elie’s experience, he gets the choice to abandon the ghetto and go with the family’s former maid to a safe shelter. He chose to stay because Elie would have been separated from his parents and little sister. This choice had a negative impact, but also a positive one. The negative side is that Elie’s family stayed in the ghettos, and then the concentration camps. At the time, no one could believe the rumors about the Nazis.
Elie was held captive in concentration camps from 1944-1945. During his time in the concentration camps, he became grateful for what he had, overcame countless obstacles, and more importantly kept fighting until he was free. [The Holocaust is very important to learn about because it can teach you some important life lessons.] You should always be grateful for what you have, no matter what the circumstances are. This lesson can be learned when Elie says, “After my father’s death, nothing could touch me any more”(109).
Elie becomes weak both mentally and physically over the course of the book. His experiences and the death of his father affect him mentally so he believes that, “nothing matters [to me] anymore” (113). The holocaust affected him so much that Elie believes nothing mattered after his father died, what happened to him hurt him so much that he no longer wants to live, and he no longer has hope. Elie is also physically ill, in that he is pale and emaciated from the undernourishment in the camp, he compares himself to a corpse after he sees himself again. The holocaust changed Elie from an unaware child, to a weak young man who had never expected what he experienced.
Never shall [he] forget those things, even were [he] condemned to live as long as God Himself” (Wiesel 75). This quote leads me to believe that the suffering endured in the camps lead Elie to become lost with who he was. Elie and the other members of the Jewish community try to keep their faith as much as they can even though it is being tested. As shown in Night enduring suffering forces people to become much different versions of themselves.
To illustrate, a change of identity occurs, “If only [Eliezer] were relieved of this responsibility… Instantly, [he] felt ashamed, ashamed of [himself] forever,” when he almost tried to leave his father alone (106). Elie faces a permanent change of identity when he strays away from his old educated habits and becomes a selfish creature when going through pain. Another example of a change of identity within Elie is when his father dies, “And deep inside [him], if [he] could have searched the recesses of [his] feeble conscience, [he] might have found something like: Free at Last!” expressing that his father’s death finally freed him, out of the misery, out of the agony (112). Eliezer’s journey with his father through the excruciating concentration camps developed him from an innocent teenager to a mature man with the capabilities to succeed in unbearable situations.
World War II had been raging for two years and was bout to enter Sighet. The Germans attempted to commit genocide on the 'lesser ' races, particularly Jews. Through the brutality witnessed, acts of selfishness, the death of his father, and the loss of his faith, Elie changed. Elie became a young man with a strong sense of mortality through it all. By the end of the war, Elie claimed to see himself as "A corpse contemplating me."
Elie went through extreme adversity within the camps of Auschwitz yet still managed to persevere. The experiences Elie went through in camp Auschwitz changed him as an individual spiritually; a boy who was once devoted to God ceased to believe in him. Elie also lost his sense of self identity, as his personality completely changes. During his internment at Auschwitz and Buchenwald Elie completely loses his innocence. As a result of the adversity Elie faces throughout his time at the Auschwitz camp, his identity is tarnished and eventually reformed.
The cruelty of the German officers at the concentration camps change Elie’s personality throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Elie is deeply religious and spends most of his time studying Judaism. However, by the end of the novel, Elie believes that God has been unjust to him and all the other Jews, and has lost most of his faith. The cruelty of the German officers also changed the other Jews as well. The events of the Holocaust forces the prisoners to fend for themselves, and not help others.