ipl-logo

Theme Of The Holocaust In Elie Wiesel's Night

1041 Words5 Pages

The Holocaust was a cruel and terrifying time, especially for the groups targeted. Before it began, the Wiesels had been a deeply religious Jewish family. Elie Wiesel was only a teenager when he and his family were torn from their home and sent to concentration camps. There, he faced many horrors including the deaths of his family and the distortion of the person he once was. Wiesel has recounted these horrific events in his memoir, Night. Although many realize the significance of this novel, it has been criticized for its depressing subject matter. Night is important because it tells the painfully true details of the Holocaust in a way that cannot be forgotten. This memoir illuminates the terrors of the concentration camps from a first hand …show more content…

If the public allows for these crimes to be forgotten, it only benefits those who committed such inhumane acts of violence. In his preface, Wiesel states that he is “... a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory.” (Wiesel viii) Even after their reign of terror is over, letting the stories of those who suffered to be lost in time allows the Nazis and their allies one last victory over the Jews. Already, the victims had felt abandoned. “For [Wiesel] belongs to a traumatized generation, one that has experienced the abandonment and solitude of [his] people…” (Wiesel 119) To act as if nothing happened would be abandoning them once more. Furthermore, forgetting makes the public accomplices. It does no good for anyone involved in the situation except for the despot. “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented, Sometimes we must interfere.” (Wiesel 118) By writing this novel Wiesel was taking a stand against the people who caused his so much trauma. He is interfering in his own way, by making sure the public does not allow the past to be

Show More
Related
874 Words | 4 Pages

The memoir written by Elie Wiesel, Night, is illustrating the Holocaust, the even which caused the death of over 6 million Jews. Auschwitz, the concentration camps, is responsible for over 1 million of the deaths. In the memoir Night, Wiesel uses the symbolism of fire, and silence to clearly communicate to the readers that the Holocaust was a catastrophic and calamitous event, and that children should never be involved in warfare. Elie Wiesel enters Auschwitz at the age of 15, and witnesses’ horrific events as a prisoner in Auschwitz, including the deaths of numerous children, and the beating and death of his own father. All these inhumane things were done just because Adolf Hitler wanted to cleanse the German society of the Jews.

Read More
882 Words | 4 Pages

This book is very important because it teaches the reader things they didn’t know well or proves to them that they are wrong if they believed that the Holocaust was not harmful. No one had the right to treat these people in that way and no one has the right to ban this book because this will be censorship. Night also shows the truth about the Holocaust and teaches us that this period in history should be prevented from happening

Read More
1015 Words | 5 Pages

Long Hours of Darkness “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.... Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live” (32). Never shall we forget the atrocious events that happened to upwards of six million Jews during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a genocide run by Adolf Hitler to exterminate nearly a whole population of Jews and very few prisoners lived to tell their treacherous stories.

Read More
197 Words | 1 Pages

In the novel Night the protagonist, Elie Wiesel, narrates his experiences as a young Jewish boy surviving the Holocaust. Elie 's autobiographical memoir informs the reader about how the Nazis captured the Jews and enslaved them in concentration camps, where they experienced the absolute worst forms of torture, abuse and inhumane treatment. Dehumanization is shown in the story when the Jews were stripped of their identities and belongings, making them feel worthless as people. From the start of Elie Wiesel 's journey of the death camps, his beliefs of his own religion is fragile as he starts to lose his faith. Lastly, camaraderie is present as people in the camps are all surviving together to stay alive so as a result the people in the camp shine light on other people 's darkness.

Read More
771 Words | 4 Pages

Elie Wiesel, author and victim of the Holocaust wrote the novel Night which portrays his experiences in the Holocaust. During the Holocaust the Nazis dehumanized many groups of people, but primarily the Jewish people. Elie writes about his personal journey through the Holocaust, and how he narrowly escaped death. In Elie’s novel he also provides detailed descriptions of what the victims of the Holocaust had to suffer through, and the different ways the Nazis made them feel like nothing more than animals that are meant to be used for work and slaughtered. One of the first things that Elie and the other Jewish people from his village have to suffer through is riding in a cramped cattle car, as if they were animals.

Read More
967 Words | 4 Pages

In a span of 10 years, the Holocaust killed over 7 million people, that’s just as much as the population of Hong Kong. In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel shares his experience on how he survived the Holocaust and what he went through. How he dealt with the horrors and even to how he felt of his dad’s death and how he saw himself after it was all over. As he tried to publish it he was constantly turned down due to the fact of how horrid and truful it was. He still tried and tried until it was finally published.

Read More
564 Words | 3 Pages

Night Paper Assignment Night, by Elie Wiesel, is a tragic memoir that details the heinous reality that many persecuted Jews and minorities faced during the dark times of the Holocaust. Not only does Elie face physical deprivation and harsh living conditions, but also the innocence and piety that once defined him starts to change throughout the events of his imprisonment in concentration camp. From a boy yearning to study the cabbala, to witnessing the hanging of a young child at Buna, and ultimately the lack of emotion felt at the time of his father 's death, Elie 's change from his holy, sensitive personality to an agnostic and broken soul could not be more evident. This psychological change, although a personal journey for Elie, is one that illustrates the reality of the wounds and mental scars that can be gained through enduring humanity 's darkest times.

Read More
609 Words | 3 Pages

When the young boy asks, “Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent”, (paragraph 5) again the audience is prompted to emotionally respond. They have to realize that it was all of them, all of us, who remained silent and that this silence must never happen again. Wiesel demonstrates a strong use of pathos throughout his speech to encourage his audience to commit to never sitting silently by while any human beings are being treated

Read More
710 Words | 3 Pages

Night is a powerful, first person account of the tragic horrors of the Holocaust written and endured by Elie Wiesel. In this dark literary piece, Wiesel's first hand tale of the atrocities and horrors endured in World War II concentration camps will leave an unforgettable, dark, macabre impression amongst readers that cannot be done with a simple listing of statistics. This tale of human perserverance and the dark side of human nature will cause readers to question their own humanity. Also, it will paint a vivid picture of the vile deeds that mankind is capable of expressing. Reading this book will leave a long lasting impression that is definitely not something that will be soon forgotten.

Read More
1129 Words | 5 Pages

Elie Wiesel’s somber speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, demonstrated the harsh reality of the numerous evils harvesting in the world. The main evil though was simply indifference, or a lack of concern. As a young Jewish boy, he faced the wickedness of the Holocaust, imprisoned at Buchenwald and Auschwitz and also losing both his parents and younger sister. The speaker saw atrocious horrors and suffered for a prolonged amount of time. Why was this permitted?

Read More
714 Words | 3 Pages

Memory Blessing or Curse Religious wars fought over beliefs were always fought between two sides and one is thought to have a winner and a loser victor and victim. In Elie Wiesel’s Noble speech “Hope, Despair, and Memory” he describes his experiences during a religious war that were more of an overpowering of people than a war no clash of metal, no hard fought fight, just the rounding up and killing of people with different beliefs that barely put up a fight. Elie Wiesel the author of the Noble lecture “Hope, Despair, and Memory” implores us to respond to the human suffering and injustice that happened in the concentration camps by remembering the past, so that the past cannot taint the future through his point of view, cultural experiences, as well as his use of rhetorical appeals. Wiesel uses his cultural experiences and point of view sot that he could prove he spent time and survived the concentration camps in order to communicate that the past must be remembered that way it cannot destroy the future, he spent time in a concentration camps and he

Read More
855 Words | 4 Pages

The speech, Mr. Wiesel showed to the audience that he knows of these events firsthand because he shared his own personal suffering and established ethos by telling the story in first person. He argued about the guilt of past violent events and proclaimed that said events could have been avoided if humanity had been less indifferent. He stated that had someone have intervened earlier, these events could have been avoided. Nonetheless, Mr. Wiesel still showed gratitude to those who intervened and fought those responsible for the hardship of himself and his people. However, he still did not understand why they did not do an intervention at an earlier time to avoid the suffering of thousands of people.

Read More
661 Words | 3 Pages

Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the personal tale of his account of the inhumanity and brutality the Nazis showed during the Holocaust. Night depicts the story of a young Jew from the small town of Sighet named Eliezer. Wiesel and his family are deported to the concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He must learn to survive with his father’s help until he finds liberation from the horror of the camp. This memoir, however, hides a greater lesson that can only be revealed through careful analyzation.

Read More
744 Words | 3 Pages

In which millions of Jews were innocently killed and persecuted because of their religion. As a student who is familiar with the years of the holocaust that will forever live in infamy, Wiesel’s memoir has undoubtedly changed my perspective. Throughout the text, I have been emotionally touched by the topics of dehumanization, the young life of Elie Wiesel, and gained a better understanding of the Holocaust. With how dehumanization was portrayed through words, pondering my mind the most.

Read More
806 Words | 4 Pages

Wiesel’s speech shows how he worked to keep the memory of those people alive because he knows that people will continue to be guilty, to be accomplices if they forget. Furthermore, Wiesel knows that keeping the memory of those poor, innocent will avoid the repetition of the atrocity done in the future. The stories and experiences of Wiesel allowed for people to see the true horrors of what occurs when people who keep silence become “accomplices” of those who inflict pain towards humans. To conclude, Wiesel chose to use parallelism in his speech to emphasize the fault people had for keeping silence and allowing the torture of innocent

Read More

More about Theme Of The Holocaust In Elie Wiesel's Night

Related Topics

Open Document