Night By Elie Wiesel Analysis

The comfort of one’s home is an almost indescribable feeling, characterized by the open arms of the ones you love and a space where you have the freedom to do as you choose. For the millions of Jewish people living in Europe during World War II, this statement was far from the truth. Families, like Elie Wiesel’s, were removed from their homes and forced to live in ghettos. They faced atrocious circumstances that would only get worse with time, as their fate was to eventually be moved to horrid concentration camps. Their existence became one of pain, suffering and misery, and it all started in the slums that became their homes. European Jews lived normal lives up until the brink of World War II, when the Nazis came into power. They cruelly

Countless individuals taken to live in these places recorded their experiences, similar Elie Wiesel and Mary Berg. Stanislaw Sznapman was one of these people, and his writing displays the horrors of his living situation. “And so the days passed, filled with persecution, humiliation, and hideous torments. No one felt safe day or night.” (Sznapman 19) This goes to show that the Jews were regularly discriminated against and treated like complete filth. This was due to Nazi ideology, which favored an “Aryan” race and deemed it necessary to exterminate those who did not fit this description. Jews were a part of this and faced unspeakable crimes during the holocaust. Many people immediately think of concentration camps, but it is important to realize that the root of all of that was the ghettos. Jews were seen as burdens on society and Nazis had a yearning to wipe them out. Their success in doing so began in these ghettos. As stated by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Food allotments rationed to the ghetto by the German civilian authorities were not sufficient to sustain life.” Tens of thousands of Jews died from this reason alone. This truly portrays the absolute magnitude at which the Jews were being mistreated. Already, this lack of food and decent resources was a kind of warning as to how they would be taken to

An example of this was the tendency of children to continue to go to school despite laws that said otherwise. As stated by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Many young people tried to continue their education by attending school classes organized by adults in many ghettos. Since such classes were usually held secretly, in defiance of the Nazis, pupils learned to hide books under their clothes when necessary, to avoid being caught.” This was the little solace that the Jewish kids were able to receive among so much chaos. For many people nowadays, education is seen as a burden. Jewish children during the holocaust were not given this right. This made it difficult to maintain a normal life. Not being able to receive a proper education affected many children negatively, as they were held back from having normal childhoods. Education is a vital part to growing up and having a stable life, but Jewish children were not offered this, as going to school was viewed as somewhat of a privilege. Despite this, numerous efforts were made across the country in the ghettos to ensure that children were continuing to get their education. This was not the only thing that the Jews did in secret in the ghettos. They refused to allow the Nazis to tear their religion away from them. As stated in the following quote by the