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During the Holocaust, the Nazi’s murdered an estimated 6 million Jews, which was about two thirds of the entire European Jewish population. To put this in perspective, the amount of Jews that were murdered during the Holocaust is about the same size as the population of Denmark. The Holocaust is a part of Jewish history that can never be forgotten, and the Jews who fell subject to this inhuman act will never be forgotten either. The Holocaust has changed Jewish culture forever, and has become the 4th crisis of Judaism.
Elie Wiesel’s autobiography, Night, is an account of Elie’s terrifying experiences and memories of the Holocaust. This autobiography not only reveals many horrifying details and a first-hand account of the Holocaust, but also how Jews belief in God struggled to survive and remain present. The Holocaust made many Jewish and non-Jewish people question how God can exist with such evil and suffering present in the world. The living conditions of the Holocaust alone were enough evil to question if God existed, but the mass murder that also took place during the Holocaust makes God’s presence seem impossible.
Elie was just a teenage boy in 1944 when he and his family were taken from their home in Sighet, Transylvania and were sent off to Auschwitz, a concentration camp. Elie was separated from his mother and sisters when they arrived at Auschwitz and never saw them again. The cruelty and inhumanity that Elie and many others experienced is unfathomable. Elie doubted God’s existence during his horrific experiences of the Holocaust, but his belief in God was still minimally present when he asked questions wondering how God could allow such evil. The questioning and search for God permits Elie to continue to have some bel...
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...and ideology is crushed for Elie when he experiences the cruelty and evil of the Nazi’s during the Holocaust.
Elie’s life in the concentration camp is filled with fear and uncertainty. The sanctified life that Elie once lived began to fade away, along with his belief in God. Elie not only doubts God, but also feels anger towards God. On page 34 Elie writes, “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” Elie’s blames his deep despair and sorrow on God because Elie believes God is the one responsible for the inhumane and evil acts of the Nazi’s. He blames God for hurting and ailing millions of people, but also for losing the sense of his once sanctified and blessed life.
Works Cited
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Marion Wiesel. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.
Throughout his recollections, it is clear that Elie has a constant struggle with his belief in God. Prior to Auschwitz, Elie was motivated, even eager to learn about Jewish mysticism. Yet, after he had been exposed to the reality of the concentration camps, Elie began to question God. According to Elie, God “caused thousands of children to burn...He kept six crematoria working day and night...He created Auschwitz, Birkenau, [and] Buna”(67). Elie could not believe the atrocities going on around him. He could not believe that the God he followed tolerated such things. During times of sorrow, when everyone was praying and sanctifying His name, Elie no longer wanted to praise the Lord; he was at the point of giving up. The fact that the “Terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent”(33) caused Elie to lose hope and faith. When one cho...
Most people have never experienced anything near as awful as what Wiesel experienced. He was one of the only people who found a way to hold onto their faith. Many made excuses not to perform rituals and eventually lost all faith. Wiesel was weakened, but remained faithful. Akiba Drumer, a friend of Wiesel, tried to convince himself that it was a test by God. However, Akiba also lost faith. “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” (Wiesel 34) This quote was from a small portion of Wiesel’s “Never Shall I Forget Poem.” It showed how Elie lost faith in God when he saw what the Nazis were doing to families and children. This quote shows how the religious part of Elie was “murdered.” Elie seemed to become foreign and isolated from his people. He seemed to be just going through the motions during his time in the camps. “In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger.” (Mauriac XXI) This quote shows how Wiesel felt like he was a stranger to the religion, community, and faith. Elie Wiesel couldn’t understand why God would hurt people, and most of all why he was spared. “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.
He had strong faith in God but yet as the story goes on, the camp starts to affect him and slowly loses faith. At the beginning, Elie is really close to God and expresses his faith greatly. “ By day i studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.” (4). He studied the Talmud, which is the study of Jewish faith, everyday when he wasn’t in the camp, and he wept over the destruction of the temple. He wouldn’t have cared for any of this if he didn't have strong faith and believe in God. Now as the story progresses, that slowly begins to change. “ Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would i bless him? Every fiber in my body rebelled.” (67). Elie couldn’t find a reason to. He thought, why would a God let something so horrible happen to all the Jews. He couldn’t apprehend it therefore he questioned his faith in
Due to the atrocities of the concentration camps, Elie lost his faith in God. Early on in the story, Elie used to leap over ancient temples and study the Kabbalah. In his old town, he used to complain to Moishe the Beadle “ I told him how unhappy I was not to able to find in Sighet a master to teach me the Zohar.”(Wiesel,5) This shows him complaining about not having a teacher. But as he started to go through the camps, he saw what was going on and started to
However, there were warnings by some people that Jewish people were being deported and killed. Although no one believes these warnings, Elie and his family are taken to a ghetto where they have no food. After being in the ghetto, Elie and his father were separated from Elie’s mother and sister because of selection and were placed in cattle cars where they had no room. They are taken to Auschwitz where they suffer from hunger, beatings, and humiliation from the guards which causes Elie’s father to become weak. By now Elie has lost his faith in God because of all he has been through.
An estimated 1/3 of all Jewish people who were alive were grotesquely tortured and murdered during the Holocaust. Those who were not murdered went through changes mentally, physically, and spiritually. This changed many people’s identities to where they seemed like a completely different person. Elie was one of the many people whose identity had changed throughout their time at the death camps.
Elie is just a young boy whenever everything happens, and his faith in humanity is still quite strong. However, as time goes on, Elie is faced with an abundance of challenges and tasks that will test just how strong his faith is. Whenever Elie was young, he was curious about God and wanted to know more, causing him to soon meet Moshe the Beadle. Moshe was a strongly religious person and taught Elie almost everything he knew. In a way Moshe was Elie’s best friend. He lived a joyous life and loved all of the people surrounding him, until he disappeared with the Germans. All of the Jews believed that they were going to a “resort”, however, they were horifically wrong. The treatment they received from the Lagerkapo, was indescribably awful. Whenever Moshe was the only one to return and he was changed tremendously and kept screaming about how they were going to die and the Germans were going to hurt them, no one believed him and called Moshe crazy and felt pity for him. This was the first time that Elie’s faith in humanity was slightly tested. The first sign of no humanity that Elie noticed, was the first camp he was deported to, Birkenau, and saw young babies burning in a fire. Throughout the Holocaust, Elie loses all his faith that humans have potential. He believes they care more about their own survival than trying to help others. At this point, Elie has no faith in man and that the
Could you imagine a cold breeze that just cuts you up left and right? Or perhaps long days of starvation, with the sight of grass pleasing your stomach. For Elie Wiesel this was no imagination, nor a dream, this was in fact reality. Such a horrifying experience in his life he felt he had to share in a book called Night. Gertrude Samuels, who wrote the review, "When Evil Closed In," tries to help you depict on what devastating situations Elie was put through.
Night by Elie Wiesel is an autobiographical novel recording Mr. Wiesel’s experiences during the World War II holocaust. As a 15 year old boy Elie was torn from his home and placed in a concentration camp. He and his father were separated from his mother and his sisters. It is believed that they were put to death in the fiery pits of Auschwitz. The entire story is one of calm historical significance while there is a slight separation between the emotional trauma of what are occurring, and the often-detached voice of the author.
After a brief stay at Auschwitz, they are moved to a new camp, Buna. At Buna, Elie goes through the dehumanizing process of the concentration camps. Both he and his father experience severe beatings at the hand of the kapos. All the prisoners are overworked and undernourished. Many lose faith in God, including Elie. He witnesses several hangings, one of a boy with an angelic face, and sees him struggle for over thirty minutes fighting for his life. To a stranger's cry of "Where is God now?", Elie answers: "He is hanging here on this gallows...." (p. 62). As Elie witnesses the hanging of the young pipel, he feels that it is his God who is hanging on the gallows. Elie i...
Eliezer’s horrible experiences at Auschwitz left him caught up in his sorrows and anger toward God. His loss of faith in God arises at Auschwitz. He doubts arise when he first sees the furnace pits in which the Nazis are burning babies. This horrifying experience ...
Eliezer loses faith in god. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. "Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul and turned my dreams to dust..."(pg 32). Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of his misery. "Why should I bless his name? The eternal, lord of the universe, the all-powerful and terrible was silent..."(pg 31). Eliezer is confused, because he does not know why the Germans would kill his face, and does not know why god could let such a thing happen. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(pg 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and courage to live.
In the beginning of the memoir, Elie is an extremely passionate and devout Jew, but as the story progresses, Elie sees horrendous things in the concentration camps, and as a result, he slowly loses his faith. Elie displays his extreme devotion in the beginning stages of the memoir when he states, “By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. I cried because something inside me felt the need to cry” (Wiesel 4). Elie is clearly very fond of learning more about his religion and connecting to God in a spiritual way. Furthermore, Elie is only thirteen years old, so when he says he cries because he feels the need to cry, he is exhibiting incredible passion. Elie reveals signs of change and begins to lose his faith in God just a few moments after arriving at the concentration camp when he says, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes” (Wiesel 34). Elie exclaims that he cannot worship God anymore due to the awful things he has seen at Auschwitz. He does not want to believe in the being that could have allowed these awful events to happen. This is a completely different Elie from the loving and caring Elie in the ghetto. Elie also uses rep...
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 lives changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before the 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).