...in his fight for life. Their familial love gave his father the hope to do the seemingly impossible and defy death, for a little longer. Hope is key to surviving in any situation, but it takes a lot of emotional strength to maintain. During the Holocaust, this was truer than ever for millions of people, who faced death every day, and were tortured, starved, and violated. Their hope in religion, the goodness of humanity, and themselves were continually tested and most victims’ hope were eventually lost because of their suffering. One survivor, Elie Wiesel, wrote a memoir, Night, sharing his experiences during the Holocaust and in a concentration camp, and solemnly displaying his progression of hope. Elie's gradual loss of hope caused him to lose the emotional strength that he needs to survive, which made him desperate to cling on to the familial identity that was...
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...The dark tone of Night illustrates the horrors of the Holocaust. The hanging of the Pipel and the Rabbi betraying his father during the march exemplifies the depressing mood. Likewise, his beloved mother, sister, and father’s death presents the mournful attitude throughout the novel. Prisoners constantly grieve about humanity when families drift apart and kill for food, innocent bodies are murdered, and people are held against their will. Family, however, preserves most people. Wiesel portrays the idea that family is important and provides hope even in the darkest times. At the beginning of the book, prisoners in the camps cling to their family members; their only source of hope in the horrific surroundings. Uncle Stan, after Eliezer lies to...
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...Chapter 4 Once Elie Wiesel and his father arrive at Buna, they are put to work counting electrical fittings in a warehouse. They stay in a barrack of musicians with a nice head Kapo. Here, Elie meets Juliek, a musician, and two brothers, Yosi and Tibi. A little while later, Elie is summoned to have his gold crown removed by the dentist. Wiesel is able to continuously put this off until the dentist is hanged for keeping the gold teeth for his own profit. Then Wiesel's work Kapo, Idek beats him terribly, but then a French girl helps and talks to him. Years later Wiesel sees this girl again in Paris and gets a chance to talk to her. Later Idek savagely beats Wiesel's father, but Elie Wiesel isn't concerned for his father's health or safety, and is instead mad at him for not being strong enough to defend himself. Then Franek, another head of the camp demands that Wiesel hand over his gold crown to him. He refuses, and so Franek takes out his fury on Wiesel's father until Wiesel finally gives him the tooth. In the warehouse, Elie Wiesel accidently catches Franek with a woman, and in retaliation, Franek whips Wiesel publicly until Wiesel goes unconscious. Later there is an air raid, and all the prisoners are confined to their blocks. Some days later, a man is hanged for trying to steal during the air raid when he was supposed to be in his block. There were a few more hangings following that one. One which involved a young boy accused of sabotage. When Wiesel sees how they cruelly...
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...In today’s day, we respect the past but rarely delve into it except for certain days. Elie Wiesel’s book Night is the self-account of Wiesel’s life in the Holocaust. It reflects back to the time through the eyes of a Jewish boy living in the awful conditions. It tells the story from the first few steps that Hitler takes, to when the camps was liberated. Wiesel delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity. The Final Days is a film about resistance in Nazi Germany of one woman in particular. The movie starts off showing the main character having fun and there is light and laughter. This quickly changes as it shows her with members of the White Rose, an Anti-Nazi organization. She was caught and found guilty. This movie is a true story based on an actual Sophie Scholl who lived throughout this and was a member of the White Rose. Although one is about standing up for your rights not matter the consequence, and one is about knowing when hope is but a lost phrase, barely living in your mind. While that is all true, they also have a lot of differences, for instance, they have very different main characters who come from different parts and are effected by the war in different ways, each story is told in very different ways and each has its own meaning, and they have different messages that are portrayed throughout each. In the memoir Night, Elie starts off as a regular Jewish boy in Sighet, Transylvania. He was a teenager when his family...
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...Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the story of the Holocaust, the mass genocide of the Jewish people and important event in WWII. The memoir Night begins in the polish town of Sighet. The story is About Elie Wiesel, a Jewish boy whose family gets deported to the concentration camp with other Jews from his town. Upon arrival his Mother and Sister, Tzipora are separated and executed by the Nazis in the Auschwitz death camp. Following that, after months of work, with the advancing allied front, the prisoners were forced to march all night to the Gleiwitz concentration camp. As Elie’s story continues, after being stuffed inside a camp barrack for 3 days without food or water, the Prisoners were let out for a selection, Elie’s Father was chosen to...
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...Eliezer’s Character Change The Holocaust was a devastating time in history where Jews were forced into concentration camps and worked, starved, or burned to death. One of the most influential writers who lived during this time period was Elie Wiesel. Wiesel’s Night is a memoir depicting the journey of a young boy, Eliezer, who experienced the Holocaust at a very young age. The Nazis occupied Hungary in the spring of 1944, and Eliezer and his family are deported to a concentration camp. While at several different concentration camps, Eliezer faces a variety of different situations, and he learns to adapt to his circumstances. As his father becomes weaker and weaker throughout the memoir, Elie starts to develop mixed emotions for him. During...
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...Night by Elie Wiesel, recounts his experiences during the holocaust. Wiesel and his family were Jews living in Nazi Germany. He and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie was fifteen when he was imprisoned and his goal was to keep his family together. When the Germans separated Elie and his father from his mother and sister, he then focused on staying by his father’s side. As he and his father were being transported to Buna Werke, a concentration, the fear of being separated from his father was great, “all I [Elie] could think of was not to lose him [Elie’s father],” (Wiesel 30). Realizing that he would never see his mother and sister again, the idea of being alone without his father terrified him. Elie’s devotion to his father gave him a reason to...
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...Night by Elie Wiesel describes his experiences as a Jew in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Wiesel and other Jews survived, but many others did not. One of the key components to the Jews’ survival was faith and hope. Stein of Antwerp was one of the Jews that died because he lost his hope. He had known Wiesel and his family by his mother. Wiesel’s mother had written many letters to Stein and his wife Reizel. Stein had said “I was deported in 1942. I heard that a transport had come in from your region, and I came to find you. I thought perhaps you might have news of Reizel and my little boys. They stayed behind in Antwerp. . . .” (Wiesel 40) Although Wiesel knew nothing about them, he lied and said “Yes, my mother’s had...
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...belongings stolen, friends and family killed. Two such accounts of this immense tragedy are Elie Wiesel's autobiographical story, Night, and Yann Martel’s fictional tale, Life of Pi. Faced with grief, the main characters of both books overcome their hardships through a beacon of hope, a tremendous determination, and a courage that nobody should ever need to possess. In Night, the main character and author of the book, Elie Wiesel, is taken from his home and put into a concentration camp run by Hitler’s Nazi party, along with his family and his fellow passengers. When they first arrive, his mother and sister are taken away to be slaughtered, and his father succumbs to dysentery later on. Toward the very end of the story, the camp is liberated, and he is taken to a hospital to have the injuries he suffered at the camp treated. He has the opportunity to look into a mirror for the first...
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...Would you ignore if six million people were 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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...In the book Night Elie Wiesel has a strong faith in God at the beginning of the book.Wiesel has developed this faith by his studies in mysticism and Kabbalah he seems very eager to learn more . For instance, on page four he says “One day I asked my father to find me a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah. ‘You are too young for that. Maimonides tells us that one must be thirty before venturing into the world of mysticism.’”Wiesel’s loss of confidence in God who he once strongly believed in is thanks to the inhumane way people were treated, his lack of basic life necessities, and all the losses Wiesel experienced during the camp and the Holocaust in general. One reason Wiesel lost faith was because he did not believe...
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...the courage and strength to continue to live is his connection with religion and his relationship with God. Initially Elie shows strong devotion, then becomes disillusioned with God’s power, and ultimately redefines the position God holds in his life. In the beginning, Elie Wiesel’s relationship with God in Night shows strong devotion. Wiesel made spirituality inherent to all activities, wished to spend his life focused around Judaism, and devoted all his free time and energy on religious studies. Wiesel believed that religion was a basic survival need, showing that he followed his religion instinctively. When asked why he prayed, Wiesel couldn’t think of a proper answer and thought, “…strange question, why did I live, why did I breathe?”. Wiesel maintained confidence in religion as the situation deteriorated. Wiesel and his people gave thanks to God for survival, keeping hope that God was putting them through a test of hardships what would keep them alive if they kept their faith. When they had arrived at Auschwitz, they thanked God and were able to regain their confidence because, “Here was a sudden release from the terrors of the previous nights”. Wiesel thanked God for the little things that helped him because he wanted a sense of protection and clung to the belief that God watched over them and helped them survive the challenges he faced. When Wiesel’s new shoes get covered in mud and are not discovered by the SS Guards, he “thanked God, in an improvised prayer, for having...
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...English 1302 29 November 2013 Losing Faith There were a lot of Jewish people who had a large faith in humanity or in what we all called God and Elie Wiesel was one of them. Their faith in humanity ended up being lost during the second Great War, which is commonly known as War World II. Though, after the war and after they were saved by the Allies, little by little their faith in humanity and God slowly came back. Even the truest believers, like Elie Wiesel, can lose their faith in all of humanity and even who they call God, but once you are shown even a slightest bit of kindness, you can gain it all back. In the very beginning of Elie Wiesel’s novel, Night, based off his experiences during the World War II, all he wanted was someone to help him in his studies of the Kabbalah. Even though his father thought him to be too young that did not stop Elie from pursuing his dreams. He ended up finding a teacher for his studies of the Kabbalah in Moishe the Beadle. Elie was not the only Jewish child whose studies meant a lot to him. David Weiss Halivini was another child who had big dreams and an even larger faith. He had a dream of being a rabbi of a small village in the Carpathian Mountains (Fox). Though he had to put his dreams on hold after the Germans came and put his family into the ghettos, just like Elie’s family. Also like Elie, he continued with his studies, not wanting to put his dreams on hold because he was moved into a ghetto. Not only did Jewish families have a strong...
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...Elie Wiesel’s Loss of Innocence There comes a time in one’s life where a tragic event results in the loss of innocence and an increase in knowledge. Unfortunately this is one of life’s few promises. Some experience this ablution a lot sooner than they should. In children who survived the holocaust in concentration camps, their innocence was taken as soon as their ordinary everyday life was imposed upon by the Nazis. In Elie Wiesel’s book Night, he describes himself as an innocent teenager, a child whose innocence was taken from him as the result of the nefariousness performed by the Nazis in World War Two. Elie and his family were transported to Birkenau where his family was torn apart, leaving him with his father, his sisters and his mother. Once they were separated, he began to slowly lose his innocence. Towards the end of 1941, in the small village of Sighet, Hungary, twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel spent most of his time studying the Talmud. Elie was one of four children born to his mother and father. Hilda was the eldest, then Bea, he was the third, and Tzipora was the youngest. The two eldest sisters helped the parents run the family store while Elie stayed home to study. Elie was very passionate about the theology of his religion, Judaism. He studied Talmud by day and by night he would go to the synagogue to pray. One of his main interests was Kabbalah which is an aspect of Jewish mysticism. Elie asked his father to find him a master to guide him in his...
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...In Wiesel's detailed and devastating book Night. Wiesel describes his horrible experience during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany when his family suffered in a concentration camp. The things he experienced are unbelievable as he describes the violence, starvation, torture, and humiliation that he endured. The part where Elie questions God’s existence and then the death march that follows was especially striking to me, because it shows the extent of his hopelessness but also his enduring love for his father. Prior to going into the infirmary , Elie is living in a state of constant fear of being selected to die or being separated from his father. He is tired of hearing that the camp was even worse two years ago because he freezing, sleeping...
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