The book Night is an autobiography by Elie Wiesel, in which he describes his experiences living in Hitler’s Europe and surviving the Holocaust with his father. Elie is a Romanian Jew who grows up in Sighet, Hungary, around the time when Adolf Hitler begins cracking down upon Jews and other “undesirables”. He, along with his family and neighbors, is taken to a ghetto and then shortly after to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Wiesel and his father manage to pass the selection, and are subsequently transferred to Buna, Gleiwitz, and finally Buchenwald. Due to the trauma Elie experiences at the hands of the Nazis, he undergoes a profound transformation, losing faith, empathy, and humanity. One of the first pieces of his own identity Elie Wiesel loses is his religious faith. At the beginning of the novel, he, like most other children, is innocent, hopeful, and curious. He begins exploring the mystical side of Judaism, first on his own and then with the help of Moshe the Beadle, who becomes his de facto mentor. However, when he enters the concentration camp system set up by the Nazis, he quickly begins …show more content…
In the beginning, when Moshe runs back to his community with tales of innocent people being murdered by the Gestapo, he is rejected by deniers. However, even though Elie also does not believe him, he tries being supportive and reasonable. That all changes when he is placed into an environment where survival is a top priority. In the camps, the prisoners are subjected to terrible trauma, and the only way for someone to survive is to block all emotions out. If a prisoner was to allow himself to feel a single emotion, all the rest might follow, leading to despair and a total lack of hope. This is exactly what happens to Elie Wiesel, who tells the reader that he felt no emotion or misdirected anger when he saw his father being abused or people being sent to the