Hitler Blindfolded Germany: Elie Wiesel's "Night"

Promises of honor and prosperity, blind folded Germany and granted Hitler the power to implement his Final Solution. The Holocaust ravaged Europe, hopelessly Jews were slaughtered and fed to the flames. In attempt to cheat death, Jews could hide among loyal neighbors or confront the horrors in a Concentration Camp and pray for liberation, either path was a perilous journey. Elie Wiesel endured years of starvation and oppression in Concentration Camps, while Bronia Beker was constantly on the run and hiding from the Nazis. The turmoil of war spreads to the quiet hometowns, family crisis and separation, and the the living conditions, define Elie and Bronia. Elie and Bronia’s unique perspectives of the Holocaust differ in the actual situation, yet are homogeneous in the obstacle each individual overcomes.

Bronia Beker born in the serene town of Kosowa, was genuinely excited when war broke out in Poland. Nazis eventually dominated and forced the Jews into jobs, Bronia labored in a teahouse. She later traveled to Lvov to get away from the teashop and to go to school. Like a Plague, the war spread to Lvov, forcing Bronia home. The comforts of home whisked away her worries, though with the retreating Russians, bad times were settling in.

Her town was separated into ghettos. Bronia and her family built an underground hiding room with an air vent. When Nazis came to liquidate the ghettos Bronia’s family went into hiding. The Nazis never found the trap door, but clogged the vent. Everyone suffocated to death except Bronia, who was rescued by neighbors. Bronia hid with Joseph a close friend. They were stashed away in several friend’s barns and potato cellars until the end of the war. They had to travel place to place, bec...

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...d in the constant silence and fear of being discovered in hiding. Death was always lurking around the corner, as Joseph and herself scrambled into various cellars. Though not as severely deprived of food as Elie, Bronia still struggled with the small rations her caregivers supplied her. Both Elie and Bronia contemplated a quick death, suicide. Elie, all the time wanting to end the persisting persecution and Bronia wanting die for lack of reason to live without a family. Elie and Bronia alike, didn’t follow through, due to another person in their life urging them to push on. Elie endured physical torment on a regular basis, while Bronia coped with ongoing mental trauma of the long days waiting to be discovered and shot. Elie and Bronia both came out of the Holocaust with permanent scars, though each was caused by varying experiences, all were equally agonizing.