Summary Of Elie Wiesel's 'Night'

Reflective Statement During the interactive oral the class talked about what the lizards represented. This is very important because it is the reason Mr. Korteweg moved the body. The represent the three axis countries, and his memory of his wife. The lizards representing the axis countries is a very clear symbol because they all come to a devastating end. The lizards are crushed by Mr. Korteweg in a moment of anger and guilt. He realizes that because of his obsession over the lizards the he caused Anton’s family to be killed and his house to be burnt down. This is ironic because their house was called carefree when really they had a lot to be worried about. The Nazis had a very straightforward tactic. If anyone got in their way they were

Germans take Anton with them to the jail and keep him there for the night. The woman in the cell talks to him and ends up comforting him, she admits “if those Underground people hadn’t done this, Ploeg would have murdered many more” (34). She believes in her cause and that the death was a necessity for further progress towards liberation. Ploeg saw it as kill or be killed, so the Dutch decided to murder him and stop his waves of devastation in Haarlem. The woman in the cell saw it has her responsibility, as if she owed it to the citizens to help kill Ploeg and put a stop to the Nazi regime. The members of the Dutch Resistance had to “become a little like them in order to fight them” (38). They are saying that in order to conquer over an object, like a person, you have to become them, even if that means abandoning some of your morals. The Resistance changes their point of view from killing is wrong to killing in order to save a life is not wrong. The reader needs to decide if it is okay to abandon what you believe in to help it progress. This becomes okay because the Dutch “hate in the name of the light … whereas they (the Nazis) only hate in the name of darkness. We hate hate itself, and for this reason our hate is better than theirs” (38). The issue is was the hate actual better; a family had to die so a city could survive the menacing brutality of the Nazis. The country was a few weeks away from being liberated meaning that Ploeg’s death was not a necessity. The Dutch could have just let the liberation do the work itself but they seized control of the situation. This was the right decision because it illustrated to the Nazis that what they are doing is wrong; they saw that the city was not afraid to fight for