Torture In Elie Wiesel's Night

686 Words3 Pages

The Holocaust-related plays, movies and books that have been read and watched thus far in the semester have left us, the students, with more questions than answers. By depicting the events as accurately as these playwrights and filmmakers have, the reader/viewer is then able to understand, in detail, the horrific acts of torture that the victims had to endure. With an accurate picture of the events of the Holocaust in their mind, the reader/viewer then can start to question how can a human being can commit such horrific acts of cruelty upon their fellow man or how a divine entity can allow something so terrible happen to the people that believe in them the most; questions with virtually impossible answers. For instance, in Amen, the filmmaker focuses on the unwillingness of Pope Pius XII to speak out against Hitler and the Third Reich even though several reputable individuals made him aware of the extermination and the forced labor that the Jewish people had to experience. When Lieutenant Gerstein first confronted the Pope with evidence of the victimization that was occurring in the concentration camps, he was against helping because he believed that Gerstein’s uniform symbolized his undying belief in and admiration of Hitler. That did not stop Gerstein’s quest for justice. He continued to plead with the …show more content…

Upon reading this, the reader starts to question along with Elie, how can a God allow something so horrific to happen to his people? Why would he turn his back on those that needed him the most? Unfortunately, this again is a question without an answer. By using so much detail to describe his state of mind during this time, a tough question arises from a simple