Who Is The First Hanging In Night By Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel witnessed numerous hanging throughout his time spent at the Jewish concentration camps, but he chooses to write about only two specific hangings. The first hanging was a man sentenced to death for possession of weapons, but the second hanging was three different people being hanged, but “among them, the little pipel, the sad eyed angel.”(64) The two hangings were very similar mechanically. In both hangings, machine guns were pointed at the prisoners, the victims denied blindfolds, the victims did not seem fearful, and after the hanging was complete the prisoners had to walk past the dead bodies. Although at surface level they seem more similar than different, but the deeper look that is taken between the two hangings, the more

The “criminal” was taken out of solitary confinement and brought out in front of all the inmates. Then the inmates were offered another ration of soup if they wanted to be the executioner and then the head of the camp read the verdict of why the hanging occurred. Then they pull the chair out from under whomever the victim of the hanging was. After the Germans yelled “caps off, now cover your heads.” Lastly the “Kapos forced everyone to look him squarely in the face” (63). In both hangings, neither of the boys appeared to be scared. Also both of the boys hanged refused blindfolds to show they did not fear what was coming and as one last act of defiance to the

The boy in the first hanging was a strong boy, “He was a young boy from Warsaw. An inmate with three years in concentration camps behind him. He was tall and strong.”(61), but the second hanging was of a small innocent child. Throughout the first hanging, the inmates almost felt like the hanging was just because he had done something wrong. The inmates also asked “this ceremony, will it be over soon? I am hungry…”(62) . In the first hanging the Kapo volunteered to be the executioner for some extra soup, but in the second hanging the kapo refused to be the executioner to a child. During the second hanging the inmates asked where God was. Each hanging the lagerkapo would announce “hats off” but while doing this at the second hanging his voice wavered. His voice wavered because he knew what it meant to kill an innocent pipel. Throughout the second hanging “the SS seemed more preoccupied, more worried than usual.”(64) While announcing the second hanging, the head of the camp was “pale, almost calm, but he was biting his lip.”(64) Normally at hangings, the victim would die soon after the chair was removed, but the child was to light so he struggled for thirty minutes. The inmates did not cry after the first hanging but they did cry during the second