Persecution In Elie Wiesel's Night

While there are many good moments in our history, there are few that stain the legacy of humanity as much as the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was a man who survived this horrid event and wrote an award-winning memoir on his experiences. A point Elie gets across in Night is, Wiesel reveals how when there is persecution, we must not stay silent and forget because doing nothing only benefits the oppressor. Through multiple events and quotes, Elie shows us how important this really is.

An important and impactful moment Elie shares in his book Night is when he says “I have not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.” (Wiesel 115) Elie tells us how much he has changed since he got into the concentration camps. He made sure to add weight and impact to the

This poem is his account of how the Nazis came and took people away in their effort to make Germany “pure”. He states, “Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me”. Pastor Niemöller gives us an insight into the mindsets of the bystanders who watched the Germans execute their plan to exterminate the Jewish people. He thought that he would be safe because he was not a Jew and therefore he had no reason to interfere or help the Jews. Then when the Germans came to persecute him, he realized that there was nobody left to stop the Germans. The procrastination of the bystanders or their unwillingness to help paved the way so that the Germans could do whatever they wanted, to whoever they wanted. Pastor Niemöller realized that he could have done something, but didn’t. He then sees that the decision to simply watch and do nothing is what allowed the Germans to come for him. If he had done something, then perhaps the Germans would not have come for