An Everlasting Relationship in Elie Wiesel´s Night

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Miller Park would need to be filled to capacity 262 times to equal the eleven million total people that died during the Holocaust. Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and many others were killed for no other reason than being hated by the Nazis for who they are. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, he tells the petrifying experiences he suffered through that scarred him forever. Some things can never be unseen, and this was the case for Wiesel. If it were not for his father, his last bit of hope for life would have been shattered, and he would not have survived. As each horrifying event unfolds at the concentration camps, the true strength of the relationship between Elie Wiesel and his father shows and progressively gets stronger throughout their time there.
As a little boy, Wiesel’s relationship with his father was tenuous. Wiesel states, “My father was a cultured, rather unsentimental man….He was more concerned with others than with his own family” (2). Being highly respected in the community, Wiesel’s father is often occupied with his business and duties, which never leaves much time for his family. Wiesel’s relationship with his father lacks the chemistry a father and son usually possess. After his father discourages him to study the Cabbala, he resorts to finding his own teacher. He finds Moshe the Beadle, who soon turns into more of a father to Wiesel then he thought his father will ever be. However, Moshe later gets deported, leaving Wiesel seemingly fatherless once again.
Wiesel and his family had no idea of the terrors that would come with deportation. At the time it seems harmless, but they have no idea what lies ahead of them. This is what first marks the beginning of the first change in the relationship between Wiesel and his fa...

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..., along with eternal guilt, remains with Wiesel forever.
Although Wiesel and his father’s relationship starts out very distant, they are almost inseparable by the time his father dies. So many things bring them closer, and they push each other to stay alive. Once Wiesel’s father dies, nothing else matters to him anymore. He does not describe the three months between when his father died and when he was liberated because nothing could touch him anymore. His father was his only weak spot, and he had vanished. This completely traumatizes Wiesel and will remain imprinted in his mind forever. Eleven million innocent peoples’ lives were destroyed, which makes the holocaust arguably the worse event in the history of the world. Although this is only the story of Elie Wiesel, millions of others will be left a little footprint on this tragedy that will be remembered forever.

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