...assassinated? The historical background of Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, has experienced such a significant event. Wiesel is an Auschwitz survivor and his memoir, Night, reflects the society and the beliefs of its time. A controversy about this work is that some people believe the Holocaust never happened and as a result regard the book as false. However, this novel was important at the time it was written, because it was a time when people didn‘t believe in the Holocaust. In addition, Elie Wiesel’s background is essential to the Holocaust’s memory, because it deals with the Nazi’s genocide. The author of Night, who is also the protagonist of the book, shows how delusion and rumors spread false hopes and lies throughout the camp. The author also showed how Hitler’s belief that other races were inferior and didn’t deserve to live led to Hitler’ rise to power. Wiesel’s story is crucial to that time-period since it shows his perseverance through multiple concentration camps and the loss of close family members....
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...Can literature help us remember the past? Night, Perils of Indifference, and Acceptance Speech all have things in common. They can connect to different themes and they connect to one another. Literature has a big part in this world and it helps us remember past events, just like the Holocaust. In Elie Wiesel’s Acceptance Speech he says, “Who would allow such crime to be committed? How could the world remain silent?” This kinda ties back to theme 3 - breaking the silence on cruel acts is a way to break the cycle of repetition. He’s asking why would the world remain silent? He wanted people to break the silence when the crime was being committed. In this speech it also says “one person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death.” And this kinda connects to the prompt because it’s saying that you,...
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...In reference to his experience during the Holocaust and why he wrote night, author Elie Wiesel says without the experience he would have not become "… A witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory" (Wiesel ). The Holocaust is a memorable event that occurred in Germany and Eastern Europe in 1933 threw 1945. This tragedy was runned by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party, killing a massive amount of Jews, homosexuals, Catholics, poles, and gypsies. Hitler strongly believed that the Jews were responsible for economic struggles also known as the great depression. Many people also believed they were to blame for the loss of war. In the...
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...19 March 2012 Life during the Holocaust: Life in the ghettos, Dr. Mengele’s medical care, and food in the camps Genocide during WWII was unbelievably cruel and awful. The Holocaust was sure to be remembered from this time period and have permanently engraved horrible memories into those who survived. During the Holocaust many victims suffered while living in the ghettos, soon to reach the camps they also suffered there as well. The encounters with Dr. Mengele were unbearable too. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night is very important especially the fact that it accurately describes what really happened during the Holocaust. One of these many reasons is that Wiesel was an actual survivor of the Holocaust. His descriptions of his experiences in the ghettos, encounters with Dr. Mengele and his trouble with small amounts of food in the camp greatly make us only able to imagine what he went through. Elie Wiesel in his memoir Night, along with other victims of the Holocaust was faced with many obstacles while living in the ghettos, encounters with Dr. Mengele and forced labor. Living in the ghettos was the first step in being dehumanized. Elie Wiesel describes these experiences in his memoir Night. One example of these experiences that were described by Elie was that decrees were to be made in the Jewish ghettos. “We were no longer allowed to go into restaurants or cafes, attend the synagogue and must be in at sic o’ clock.”(Wiesel 9). These are for the Jews in the ghettos prior to full...
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...People who are religious are close with God and deny questioning His Being. Wiesel was one of the Jews who survived the Holocaust during World War ll. Wiesel’s identity of God changed during his experience in Auschwitz due to the harsh conditions faced. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel the major theme throughout the whole story is that people struggle to maintain any sort of faith in god when faced with extreme struggles. The greatest change to Elie Wiesel’s identity was his loss of faith in God. Before leaving with his family to the camps, Elie was very religious person he would cry after praying at night. When the German police came to take the Jews to the ghettos, they pulled Elie from his prayer. Elie thanks God when he was told he is...
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...their entire life. Adolph Hitler was a German man who believed his race should rule over all other races. Blue eyes and blonde hair is what kept a person safe in the 1940’s. Hitler used the power of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) and the strength of the paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel (SS) to establish himself as dictator of Germany. He was a very charismatic man, which was beneficial to his goal to have people support his desire to rid Germany of all “undesirable” people. Under his direction and with the aid of his followers, Hitler was successful in “exterminating” millions of non-Germans and non-Christians in a dark segment of history called the Holocaust. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Elie Wiesel’s Night, and Gerda Weissmann’s recollections in One Survivor Remembers center around events which took place before and during World War II. These three titles observe how the human spirit is able to respond to unimaginable horrors and unspeakable situations with an indomitable inner strength, enduring hope, and creative defenses. Even in the worst circumstances, the human spirit will not surrender. In the 1940 time era, a person who was not German or Christian was tortured in many devastating and heart-wrenching ways. Slowly, everything was taken from these people, particularly the Jews. Initially, those who did not match the “perfect” identity were forced from their homes with a small amount of personal documents and other belongings and were compelled...
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...forward. In the movie "Life is Beautiful" (2000) and Elie Wiesel's (2006) book Night, Elie and Joshua's lives are not bright. They are going through one of the hardest times of their lives, whether they know it or not. God provided for both boys to keep their paths straight and keep them moving through the torturous times. With love, life is hard to live; thankfully, both Elie and Joshua had their fathers to stand beside them and give them the encouragement to...
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... May 1, 2011 Major Works Data Sheet- Night Title: Night Author: Elie Wiesel Date of Publication: 1958 Genre: autobiography, memoir Historical information about period of publication: World War II, and the Holocaust, ended in April 1945 when the liberating Allied armies came through the conquered territories in Nazi Europe. Night describes 16 year old Elie’s loss of faith in God, humanity, family and morality in general. Elie, therefore, vowed to not speak of his experience in Auschwitz, Buna or Buchenwald (or any event between 1943 and 1945, from the beginning of the occupation of Hungary to Germany’s liberation in 1945) for ten years, until he had time to internalize this dramatic loss, and regain his faith and possession of his memory and life. In 1954, after realizing that even less than ten years after the end of the Holocaust, the world was already forgetting and Jews were abandoning their roots, the time had come to testify and justify to the world that Hitler had not succeeded. Biographical Information about the author: Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet Romania, where his memoir Night begins. In his childhood (up to the Nazi occupation of Romania) his father encouraged his study of the Torah, other Judaic texts and other literary works. As described in the beginning of Night, Elie was also curious about the realm of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. From 1944 to 1945, Elie and his family were subjected to the Nazi terror...
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...Josh Thompson History Ms. Kadlecek 7 April 2014 Remembering The word holocaust means “sacrifice by fire” and comes from the Greek words “holos” meaning whole and “kaustos” meaning burnt. The Holocaust of the 20th century was the mass murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi command during World War II. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, he states, “…in their early days of their accession to power, the Nazis in Germany set out to build a society in which there simply would be no room for Jews. Toward the end of their reign, their goal changed: they decided to leave behind a world in ruins in which Jews would seem never to have existed” (viii). The shock and horror does not lessen regardless of how many times a book or article is read or a movie watched about the Holocaust. Learning about the horrible, dark period from 1935 – 1945 is important in several ways. On one hand, it has been said we must learn about the past in order not to relive it. However, we are also told not to dwell in the past. When studying the Holocaust, both adages have truth. Chilling questions occur when learning about the Holocaust. They are questions that Elie Wiesel repeated in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Wiesel says he remembers asking his father, “Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?” (118). Millions of Jews were killed by overwork, starvation, torture, and cold blooded murder just because they were a different race and...
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...Holocaust Essay "Father just another moment. Soon we'll be able to lie down" (Wiesel 104). This was one of the last conversations with his father. Wiesel and family were transported to a Nazi occupied death camp in Poland around spring of 1944. This was during the final stage of the Holocaust (1933-1945). Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party. His plan was to exterminate all other races besides his. Hitler blamed the Jews for the lost war and the Great Depression from years prior. Being Jewish, Wiesel faced many challenges from surviving a work day, to finding a meal for him or his slowly deceasing father. Wiesel saw a lot of horror in his times in the death camp to shape him today. One personal insight I gained from reading the...
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...Elie’s role as a mockingbird becomes immediately clear the moment he leaves his home. Due to not who, but what he was, Elie found himself losing his entire life. As demonstrated in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee writes, “Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” Elie shows the readers a whole new level of courage. When Elie first arrives he and his father are separated from his mother and three sisters. Disappearing towards the Birkenau death camp, his mother and sisters become more victims of the Holocaust. Afterwards, Elie and his father struggle to survive the harsh conditions of the Auschwitz concentration camp. In order to survive, they must remain healthy enough to work. Appearing their hard work was all for naught, Elie loses his father before being freed (Night). Overall, Elie’s experience during the Holocaust allowed him to showcase what the Jews went through during that time; his persecution comes in the form of the months of trauma he sustained. None of the Jews or his family behaved in a way to earn this treatment, yet they had to endure it. In the long run, Elie is a tragic example of how unfairly some religions are...
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...Review of “Night” Marcie Mills In 1944 Europe, Elie Weisel and his family are forced into a concentration camp because they are Jewish. When they arrive, Elie and his father are separated from his mother and sisters. As this is happening, he sees Jews that were gassed being thrown into burning mass graves. A Jew's daily ration was a small bowl of thin soup and a small piece of bread. The Jews are forced to run from camp to camp naked; being shot if they stop or slow down. Elie's father gets sick and Elie shares his ration to keep his father alive. Will Elie ever see his mother and sisters again? Will Elie get out alive? The author engages the reader by making them feel like Elie or another Jew. You, the reader, feel like you are in the story. You get mad when Elie's father gets beaten and you feel how hungry they must be. Elie piques the interest of the readers by writing about all the crazy and difficult things he did to stay alive as a Jew during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was 15 when the Nazis came for the 15,000 Jews of his hometown of Sighet, Transylvania, in May 1944. Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, his mother and sister were murdered within hours, while he was put to work as a slave labourer. Eight months later, the Germans evacuated the camp and forced the survivors on a death march that ended at Buchenwald. Wiesel was one of the few still alive when the Americans arrived in April 1945. This is written a style that seems to be typical of many modern Israeli novelists;...
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...“Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.” is one of the many influential quotes Elie Wiesel has stated. Elie Wiesel is a nobel peace prize winner and has written dozens of fiction and nonfiction, addressing and crusaded against abuse and intolerance around the world inspired by his dreadful times in the Holocaust, including “Night”. In the book, Elie was only 15 when he and his family were taken and separated in Auschwitz because they were Jews. Throughout Auschwitz Elie experiences many horrid events that forever changed and shaped him into who he is today. and In the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, was effected by the events in the book because he lost his faith, gave up on humanity, and was physiological changed. Throughout Elie’s experiences during his time spent at Auschwitz, he started to lose his faith in God. Elie started to rebel and question God. Elie Wiesel stated in the text “Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled” (Page 67). Elie clearly had lost his faith. The thought of rebelling occurred after so many people died having no power. “He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves?...Kept six crematoria working day and night… had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many factories of death?” Elie also implies on page 67. Elie had heart-provoking thoughts occuring on how people could never worship the Lord and believe...
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...There are many ways the voices of the Holocaust were—and still are—spread throughout the world. There were not that many survivors left after the Holocaust, compared to how many people were in the camps. A few of these people have shared their story—through books. The books from the Holocaust survivors give people the best interpretation of the horrible pain the Jews went through. Authors use words to tell stories. Authors also use their words and stories to influence people. Sometimes the influence can be bad, such as Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Some people influence others in good ways. It may not be a huge influence, but it could still be used in a good way. The authors that wrote about their experience can make someone feel many different...
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...At first I was not fond of Night I usually like a book that has some kind of mystery or romance involved. With Night I already had an idea of how the book will end and I would not understand any way to pull a romantic notion from it. This book would definitely not be a first choice of mine. Even though I did enjoy reading it and believe that the events should never be forgotten, it is important for our societies to remember the victims along with the dwindling number of survivors. I was very impressed with the wording used; the word choice was very strong. It is amazing that his wife was able to translate and use words with so much power and strength. I had the same feelings and questions after reading Night as I have had after reading Ann Frank’s diary or watching Schindler’s list. How could this happen? What would drive any one to these thoughts or actions and believe it is right, good, or even acceptable. I wonder how Adolf Hitler would have felt if Jews had decided to eradicate Austrian/ Germans? What would he have done, would he have died or survived? I googled Adolf Hitler and there are several websites saying his father was ½ Jewish. There is even a video on UTube about Hitler being part Jewish. With a name like Adolf, some of his facial characteristics, and hair as dark as his why, would he want to annihilate a mass of people who are similar to him? I am not sure if Hitler truly was part Jewish, but if he was, did he know? How would he react if he was alive, the allegations...
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