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In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people.
The Holocaust affects Jews in a way that seems unimaginable, and most of these effects seem to have been universal experiences; however, in the matter of faith, Jews in the concentration camp described in Elie Wiesel’s Night are affected differently and at different rates. The main character, Elie, loses his faith quickly after the sights he witnesses (as well as many others); other Jews hold on much longer and still pray in the face of total destruction. In the beginning, all of the Jews are more or less equally faithful in their God and religion.
“You don’t understand... You cannot understand. I was saved miraculously. I succeeded in coming back. Where did I get my strength?
The second “kiss” from God Elie received was in the Rabbi’s words. When his life began to progressively become worse in the camps moments like the ones in the ghettos were not common; he began to become more despair. The book Night states, “He was the only rabbi whom nobody ever failed to address as "Rabbi" in Buna. He looked like one of those prophets of old, always in the midst of his people when they needed to be consoled. And, strangely, his words never provoked anyone.
In the time between 1933 and 1945, 6 million Jews had their lives ripped away from them thanks to the Nazi party and the concentration camps run by the government. Holocaust is the word chosen to describe the murder of millions of people. The man most people consider the cause of this was the furrier of Germany, Adolf Hitler. The experience was so terrible that no words seemed to accurately describe it. Multiple people who have survived this even have tried to express their story.
Elie's faith is tested many times in night. It is a struggle throughout the entire book and eventually it is lost and once it is lost you can never get it back. The first-time Elie's faith is tested is when he watches the baby's get burned alive in the dark of night when they first enter Birkenau. It is tested that same night as well when he thinks he is going to be burned alive but he still blesses god right before he thinks he's going to die. The next time his faith is when Elie’s faith was tested was on new year’s.
Alienation occurs when someone is separated from society. Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. Everyday we hear of people being mistreated and harmed, yet we know very little of people’s personal experience of the event. To help us understand, authors use symbolism. In Night, we read of the experiences that Eliezer went through, and how it separated him from God.
At the beginning of Night, Elie was someone who believed fervently in his religion. His experiences at Auschwitz and other camps, such as Birkenau and Buna have affected his faith immensely. Elie started to lose his faith when he and his father arrived at Birkenau. They saw the enormous flames rising from a ditch, with people being thrown in.
“Never shall I forget the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed, and seven times sealed” (Wiesel 32). As portrayed in this passage from Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, “night” is used numerous times as a central symbol. The nonfiction novel takes place during the Holocaust throughout several concentration camps. The word “night” literally means the period of darkness in each twenty-four hours; the time from sunset to sunrise, but symbolically it commonly represents sadness, fear, and negative commendations.
Milos Kulina Elie’s faith towards God changes a lot as the story goes on. In the beginning of the work, his faith in God is complete. In chapter one when asked why he prays to God, he says, “Why did I pray? ... Why did I live?
Edmund Burke once said, “Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference”. In the memoir, Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie struggles to comprehend why God is letting such horrible things happen during the Holocaust, which in turn lessens his faith in God. He believes that no one, even God, should turn away, or show indifference to such a horrible situation. In this memoir, it is evident that Elie’s faith in God has changed.
Religion is something that many people have consistently believed in and turned to in times of need and support. Some of these people rely on their faith more than their own family and friends. Their religion is their entire life and they can’t imagine their lives without it. Imagine a scenario that’s so terrible that God won’t take you out of it. These people will wonder where God is and pray for Him to come.
Diminishing Faith The Nazis enforced horrendous cruelty upon Elie Wiesel and the rest of the Jewish people, therefore causing Elie’s faith in God to go from complete, to partial, to absent. The German soldiers chipped away at the Jews’ needs one by one, breaking them down to precisely bodies. In the beginning of the story, Elie shares his remembrance of being completely devoted to God, and even wanting to learn more about the Kabbalah religion than his father allowed.
Eliezer is a young Jewish boy who studies Talmud and Kabbalah. The next day, his teacher Moishe the Beadle a group of deportees are on a train that get hijacked and everyone is taken captive. A very awful, tragic event occurs, the Gestapo (the group that hijacks the train) executes the deportees who were “used as targets” (6). Moishe survives the massacre but is very unstable and is driven to despair and cries “tears, like drop of wax” because the people do not believe him (7). There are now new laws to abide by, every Jew has to wear the yellow star and no longer has the right to perform certain acts.
After going through the holocaust many victims said that they suffered from PTSD, depression, and sleep disorders other had health problems due to the poor conditions of the camp. Night by Elie Wiesel is about the authors expirence of the holocaust as a teenage boy and how it slowly starts to break his pyche. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author uses conflict, characterization, symbolism to enhance the theme that putting people in tortuous situations causes mentality and body to break. The conflict of misery Elie and others had to go through because of the Holocaust.
