Themes In Night By Elie Wiesel

As the well-known 20th century Indian peacemaker Mahatma Gandhi had once said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Although, Gandhi was probably rebuking his fellow Indians as they longed for revenge against the oppressive British, this civil rights leader could have been scolding the Germans under Hitler’s dictatorship during the 2nd World War in Night, an autobiography by Eliezer Wiesel. During the teenage lives of young Eliezer, he experiences numerous inhuman horrors. In addition, his entire family is deported from Sighet, Hungary to the Auschwitz concentration camp with thousands of other Jews. Many more of these deportations happened at about the same time, changing the entire Jewish culture and history for years to come.

For example, early in the book, Eliezer recalls Moche the Beadle claiming that, “Tobias, the tailor had begged to be killed before his sons... “ and that, “No, I wanted to come back, and to warn you” (16-17). This clearly shows that although Moche had been terrified and shocked by his experience, he was still kind and compassionate enough to warn the other Jews of Sighet to save their own lives. In addition, an old servant by the name of Martha had also shown kindness to the Wiesels, “Weeping bitterly, she begged us to come to her village, where she could give us a safe refuge” (30). Her bravery shows her willingness to help those in need even when she was a non-Jew herself. Also, her request for the Wiesels to save themselves illustrates her lack of fear of danger and death at the hands of the SS. Later at Birkenau, Eliezer himself shows kindness by telling Stein, a relative, a white lie, saying that, “Yes, my mother’s had news from your family. Reizel is very well. The children…” (52). Eliezer responded in this way because he still had faith in the Jews’ survival. His successful attempt at making Stein feel better also shows that Eliezer still has enough mercy within him to care for the needs and feelings of

For instance, a Jew was arrested and hanged. However, “...he seemed more moved than afraid. His manacled hands did not tremble” (69). The description above shows the Jewish victim’s obvious disregard for his own life anymore and that would not submit to the abuses his overseers rained on him. This feeling was soon felt by a majority of the Jewish prisoners near the end of the book. Night also suggested the sense of dignity that the Jews maintained, “‘...so that they’ll realize there were men living here and not pigs’” (90). Although more likely to die than survive, the block of Jews in the example still wanted to display their dignity in the face of the “German bullies.” Moreover, the Jews wanted to show that they did not want to submit to the Germans’ use of abuse, starvation, and mistreatment. At Eliezer’s final deportation, he had described a Rabbi from Buna by saying, “...his words of comfort never provoked rebellion; they really brought peace” (96). With regards to his description, Eliezer shows that dignity could also appear in the face of religion. By helping to comfort others with kind, humane words, the rabbi himself could easily show his dignified devotion toward caring for