Lives reduced to choices without a possibility of a good outcome, the imminent and constant fight between life and death. Throughout the Holocaust Jewish people faced a multitude of choiceless choices induced by the terrible atrocities inflicted by Nazi Germany. “Choiceless choice” is a term fabricated by Lawrence Langer to better describe decisions lacking a bright side the Jews faced throughout the duration of the Holocaust. In Night, a memoir by a Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, he explains the terrible circumstances Nazi Germany and Hitler forced him and many Jews of Europe to suffer, and the choiceless choices he was forced to make in these situations. He was involuntarily put into situations where he needed to go against his morals to simply survive. No human’s life should be subjected to such choices, so why did Hitler …show more content…
They desperately searched for a scapegoat to blame for these tragedies. With race theory emerging across the European continent the Jewish people became a meek and lower class “race”. German leaders distributed propaganda advertising the Jews as the causation of the downfall of Germany. Cruel propaganda infecting the minds of the masses led to repercussions of millions forced to live between choiceless choices and life and death. Elie Wiesel was compelled to make choiceless choices throughout the Holocaust, and these choiceless choices were often made to remain alive. Three prominent choiceless choices that he made to escape the Nazi death clutches throughout his imprisonment were lying about his age, his choice to not speak out against the Kapo beating his father, and finally his ultimate decision to leave his father near death. One of the first choiceless choices Elie made while he was at Auschwitz was lying about his age, and this choice likely saved him from being automatically killed by the brutal