Eliezer Wiesel was a fifteen-year-old boy deported to the Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944-1945 along with the Jews from his hometown in Sighet. He demonstrates the personal struggles to maintain faith along with the struggle of silence, all of which are presented through the theme of Night by Elie Wiesel. His character develops a loss of innocence as he encounters inhumanity and the death of his father.
Elie was a believer in God and learned the secrets of Jewish mysticism with the help of Moishe the Beadle before being sent out to the concentration camps. As he maintained his survival, he lost his faith in God. He didn’t participate in the prayers and felt like an observer as he watched the men who gathered for prayer. "In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger."(68) As Elie and the Jews went through their days of working, starvation, and dehydration, they felt as if their days were night "and the nights left in our souls the dregs of their darkness." (100) The symbolism of night demonstrates the beginning of Earth
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"On the Appelplatz, surrounded by electrified barbed wire, thousands of Jews, anguish on their faces, gathered in silence." (66) The barbed wire helps reflect that Elie and other prisoners were living in the worst conditions and in silence, in similarity to Mrs. Schachter. On their way to the concentration camp, Mrs. Schachter spotted a fire, which no one believed until the train stopped. "And as the train stopped, this time we saw flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky. Mrs. Schachter had fallen silent on her own." (28) Fire and flames represent the symbolism of the burning bush of Moses and God. The bush represents the burning heart of love and purity for the Jews, but in this case, it was used to destroy the innocent