Summary Of Night By Elie Wiesel

681 Words3 Pages

Elie Wiesel’s “Night” depicts death, obliteration, and anguish while directly depicting the suffering he witnessed during his time at Auschwitz, a concentration camp for Jews during World War II. Within the story, there is an overwhelming amount of times the Jews had been in distress. Many children had been separated from their parents and all of the Jews were taken from their homes. Their suffering seemed endless. They were no longer teachers, homeowners, or priests. The life they once had was no longer their own. Their loss of humanity is witnessed upon arrival at Auschwitz, the largest death camp of the Holocaust. The identity of the Jews is forcefully stripped from them as they are forced to wear the yellow star, as their heads are shaved …show more content…

Upon the arrival of the Germans, the Jews of Sighet eventually experience the restrictions placed upon those of Jewish descent. One of the earliest restrictions is the rule set upon the Jews, stating that they all must wear the yellow star. “‘The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal…’” (Wiesel p.g. 11). In the beginning the Jews of Sighet thought the yellow star was something feasible that the Germans had asked them to do. They quickly found out that the yellow star was actually a symbol of their fate. The Germans wanted all of the Jews to suffer, and the yellow star symbolizes their death. Due to the Germans, the Jews ethnicity is becoming their main cause of death. Simply because they are Jews, the Germans believed they must die, to make things easier for themselves they branded them with a yellow …show more content…

After arriving at Auschwitz, numbers were tattooed upon forearms of the prisoners as a way to replace their names. “The three ‘veteran’ prisoner’s, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name” (Wiesel p.g. 143). In that moment, their identity had been completely stripped away. They were helpless, the SS officers had the dominance they wanted. They enjoyed seeing the Jews as helpless creatures, and the SS officers let all of this power get to their head. They treated the Jews like the subhuman creatures they believed them to be. Like previously stated, losing their identity created a feeling of hopelessness. Throughout the whole story we can feel and invision their hopelessness and inferiority to the