The phrase “Arbeit macht Frei” is formed in iron above the gates to many concentration camps including the camp of Auschwitz in Poland, where Elie Wiesel was held by the Nazis during the Holocaust. While this statement is often met with cynicism, there was an ironic truth to this phrase to those who shared in Wiesel’s position. The most straightforward example of the ironism of this statement was the hard labor they did within the camps at the direction of the guards that ultimately led to them escaping selection. Alternatively, there are less direct interpretations of this expression such as extreme exertion freeing the mind from feeling pain or thinking about the horrible conditions and working to preserve someone's life only to be free from the role of caretaker. In the end, the truth of the saying “Arbeit macht Frei” rings true throughout Elie Wiesel’s Night and can be interpreted as an underlying theme to his book.
When considering the phrase that had been displayed above the countless concentration camps during World War II, the foremost interpretation of it has always been that working for the Nazis would keep them from killing you out right. In Wiesel’s Night this very interpretation is used to explain the tremendous amount of labor that the Jews did at the Nazis command and why they withstood countless hours of this hard labor. For this reason, when Jews were chosen during the selection for transfer to the crematory, they begged to be spared by insisting that they could still work. This very situation was expressed in chapter five when the prisoners who had been promised to be saved found out that they were, in reality, still going to be killed: “Save us! You promised...We want to go to the depot. We are strong enough to...
... middle of paper ...
...d to his desire and acquisition of freedom from the need to care for him.
To conclude, the interpretation of the statement “Arbeit macht Frei” has many meanings, both direct and indirect. Obviously there is the most straightforward interpretation that labor freed you from the crematory selection but there are more significant indirect interpretations as well. From these implied explanation the meaning one gets is that hard physical stress allows a person’s mind to wander, essentially freeing them from reality both physically and mentally. It also provides an explanation to Wiesel’s struggle to abandon and be free from his father. Ultimately, “Arbeit macht Frei” is validated throughout Night and is can be seen as a theme overall.
Works Cited
Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982. Print.
“And question of questions: Where was God in all this? It seemed as impossible to conceive of Auschwitz with God as to conceive of Auschwitz without God.” (Hope, Despair and Memory) This shows how Wiesel couldn’t grasp the reasoning behind God. He wanted
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
Inked on the pages of Elie Wiesel’s Night is the recounting of him, a young Jewish boy, living through the mass genocide that was the Holocaust. The words written so eloquently are full of raw emotions depict his journey from a simple Jewish boy to a man who was forced to see the horrors of the world. Within this time period, between beatings and deaths, Wiesel finds himself questioning his all loving and powerful God. If his God loved His people, then why would He allow such a terrible thing to happen? Perhaps Wiesel felt abandoned by his God, helpless against the will of the Nazis as they took everything from him.
The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden. Elie Wiesel shows that the relationship with his father was the strength that kept the young boy alive, but was also the major weakness.
Wiesel uses the motif fear to develop characters. He uses this motif to show how the other Jews in the camp felt. Elie’s father tells him that he cannot sleep, since sleep means death. “Don’t let yourself be overcome by sleep, Eliezer. It’s dangerous to fall asleep in snow.
Authors sometimes refer to their past experiences to help cope with the exposure to these traumatic events. In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the devastating and horrendous events of the Holocaust, one of the world’s highest points for man’s inhumanity towards man, brutality, and cruel treatment, specifically towards the Jewish Religion. His account takes place from 1944-1945 in Germany while beginning at the height of the Holocaust and ending with the last years of World War II. The reader will discover through this novel that cruelty is exemplified all throughout Wiesel's, along with the other nine million Jews’, experiences in the inhumane concentration camps that are sometimes referred to as “death factories.”
This is Wiesel’s “dark time of life” and through his journey into night he can’t see the “light” at the end of the tunnel, only continuous dread and darkness. Night is a memoir that is written in the style of a bildungsroman, a loss of innocence and a sad coming of age. This memoir reveals how Eliezer (Elie Wiesel) gradually loses faith and relationships with both his father (dad), and his Father (God). Sickened by the torment he must endure, Wiesel questions if God really exists, “Why, but why should I bless him? Because he, in his great might, had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death?
The best teachers have the capabilities to teach from first hand experience. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel conveys his grueling childhood experiences of survival to an audience that would otherwise be left unknown to the full terrors of the Holocaust. Night discloses mental and physical torture of the concentration camps; this harsh treatment forced Elie to survive rather than live. His expert use of literary devices allowed Wiesel to grasp readers by the hand and theatrically display to what extent the stress of survival can change an individual’s morals. Through foreshadowing, symbolism, and repetition, Wiesel’s tale proves that the innate dark quality of survival can take over an individual.
“He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart.” This evokes sadness and pity from the author over a young boy having no joy in him. Elie Wiesel uses this technique to get human feelings of attachment to form with his speech.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, is an account about his experience through concentration camps and death marches during WWII. In 1944, fifteen year old Wiesel was one of the many Jews forced onto cattle cars and sent to death and labor camps. Their personal rights were taken from them, as they were treated like animals. Millions of men, women, children, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled people, and Slavic people had to face the horrors the Nazi’s had planned for them. Many people witnessed and lived through beatings, murders, and humiliations. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish
In his book Night Mr. Elie Wiesel shares his experiences about the camps and how cruel all of the Jews were treated in that period. In fact, he describes how he was beaten and neglected by the SS officers in countless occasions. There are very few instances where decent humans are tossed into certain conditions where they are treated unfairly, and cruel. Mr. Wiesel was a victim of the situation many times while he was in the camps. Yet he did not act out, becoming a brute himself, while others were constantly being transformed into brutes themselves. Mr. Wiesel was beaten so dreadfully horrible, however, for his safety, he decided to not do anything about it. There were many more positions where Mr. Wiesel was abused, malnourished, and easily could have abandoned his father but did not.
Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lived changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4). This would change in the coming weeks, as Jews are segregated, sent to camps, and both physically and emotionally abused. These changes and abuse would dehumanize men and cause them to revert to basic instincts. Wiesel and his peers devolve from civilized human beings to savage animals during the course of Night.
" N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2008. . Wiesel, Elie. Night.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Vol. 1. New York City: Hill and Wang, 2006. 33-86. 1 vols. Print.