Many Jews were persecuted and murdered in the 1940’s. They faced a undodgeable opponent, one that they couldn't escaped. His name was Adolf Hitler and he started World War II. The Jews treated each other like they were enemies, which they had to do to survive. Elie Wiesel was Jew who had survived the Holocaust as a young boy. Elie Wiesel changed greatly through the story. His religion was tested, his relationship with his father was stretched, and his mental state was worn down. Elie’s relationship with God was tested to an extent that he had never imagined. At the beginning of the story, Elie Wiesel had a strong belief in God. He would never question, disobey, or challenge the authority of God. When Hitler started to follow through with his plans for Jews, this is when Elie’s faith toward God began to be tested. When Jews were being rounded up and deported to camps, Elie believed that God would save them. As the story progresses the challenged to stay alive is hard and Elie’s feelings towards god began to sour. Elie Wiesel shares, “Why should I sanctify His name? The …show more content…
Before the move to concentration camps, Elie’s mental state was fairly solid. He had nothing wrong with his life or anything that seemed to be important enough to affect his mental health. When people started dying and getting beaten in front of Elie, he began to wear down mentally. He saw babies being thrown in the crematorium. Elie said, “I’ll run into the electrified barbed wire. That would be easier than a slow death in the flames” (Wiesel 33). As Elie progressed through the concentration camps, he slowly declined mentally. He began to think of his father as a hindrance, and would debate to kill himself and not live anymore. Elie's mental health was worn down greatly. He had gotten to the point where the choice of dying was better than living. But he wasn't the only one, plenty of other Jews suffered the same
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Show MoreIn 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...
“He’s the man who’s lived through hell without every hating. Who’s been exposed to the most depraved aspects of human nature but still manages to find love, to believe in God, to experience joy.” This was a quote said by Oprah Winfrey during her interview with Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor. No person who has not experienced the Holocaust and all its horrors could ever relate to Elie Wiesel. He endured massive amounts of torture, physically, mentally, and emotionally just because he was a Jew. One simple aspect of Wiesel’s life he neither chose or could changed shaped his life. It is important to take a look at Wiesel’s life to see the pain that he went through and try to understand the experiences that happened in his life. Elie Wiesel is a well respected, influential figure with an astonishing life story. Although Elie Wiesel had undergone some of the harshest experiences possible, he was still a man able to enjoy life after the Holocaust.
Elie Wiesel, a Jewish boy, lives in Sighet during World War II with his mother, father, and two sisters, and he is very religious and wanted to study Judaism. 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 are 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 loses his faith in God because of all he has been through. Lastly, Elie’s father dies just before the Jews are liberated and Elie sees his reflection in the mirror but does not recognize himself because he looks like a skeleton.
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...
It can be understood than in that moment, Elie was losing his mentality. Even so, he still had the sense of loneliness that most would have in that situation. Elie was hopeless, wondering where his God was, and why he was being silent. Elie never doubted his belief in god, he doubted that the god was not his god, that the god was a terrible ruler. It is important to remember that this is extremely early in Wiesel’s experience with the concentration camps, and his piousness is already decreasing. This is crucial for the understanding of this timeline in Elie’s faith.
Elie Wiesel had a very strong religion and always wanted to improve his faith but when the war came he began to lose all faith that he couldn't find anything to believe in anymore, because of all the horrible things that went on in the camps and the working
The Nazi party’s main goal was to exterminate all Jewish people, first from Germany and then from the world. In the preface for the latest version of Night, Wiesel writes, “It is obvious that the war which Hitler and his accomplices waged was a war not only against Jewish men, women, and children, but also against Jewish religion, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, therefore Jewish memory.” (Wiesel, viii). When Hitler set out to exterminate an entire group of people, he wasn’t just killing bodies but also killing their culture and therefore their souls. Without this culture people may feel as though they have nothing, as though life isn’t worth living. Throughout Night, Elie himself struggles to understand his views towards his own religious beliefs. Shortly after arriving in his first concentration camps Elie thinks, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.” (Wiesel, 34). Elie’s persecution for his religious beliefs caused the loss of a fundamental pillar of his identity. This left him feeling as though the basis of his whole life may not be legitimate and that his God is not there for him. The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 made an annual report of religious observance in 192 countries mandatory. During one report it was noted that “a Saudi teacher
This new behavior lead him to develop new character traits. While Ellie was in the concentration camp he became angry at many things, for example “I would have dug my nails into the criminals flesh” (Wisel 39). Elie shows extreme anger when the Nazi officials are beating Elie’s father. Elie was angry because the Nazi soldiers were not treating them nicely and putting them in poor conditions. Elie is usually not a person for anger but he shows this when his family members are being hurt. Elie wants to stand up for what is right and for his family members. Despite his studying, Elie wavered in his belief in Kabbalah while he was at the camp. In the book Elie says, “‘Where are You, my God?’” (66). Elie is wondering why God is not helping the Jews. Elie had complete faith in his religion until now, when he is starting to question his beliefs. He had learned that God will punish evil and save the righteous. However, when Elie saw that God was not helping the Jews situation then asked himself the question, “Is God real?”. Elie became worried because he felt he had lost a companion that always seemed by his side at all times. He lost hope. While Elie was in the camp he had changed the way he acted towards his Dad. Before Elie was sent to the camp Elie had a love hate relationship with his dad. However while they were in the camp together they became closer. Elie showed this when, “I tightened my grip on my
...igher being, or achieving a lifetime goal. People can survive even in the most horrible of situations as long as they have hope and the will to keep fighting, but when that beacon begins to fade. They will welcome what ever ends their plight. The Holocaust is one of the greatest tragedies in human history. Elie Wiesel wrote this memoir in hopes that future generations don't forget the mistakes of the past, so that they may not repeat them in the future, even so there is still genocide happening today in places like Kosovo, Somalia, and Darfur, thousands of people losing their will to live because of the horrors they witness, if Elie Wiesel has taught us anything, it is that the human will is the weakest yet strongest of forces.
Before Elie goes to the concentration camp he is the cosseted son of a rich and influential man. His life turns only around his belief in god. He is even angry with his father because he doesn’t let him fast and study the Kabbalah. In Elie Wiesel’s book Night on p. 4 Elie asks his father to find him a master who could guide him in his studies of Kabbalah but his father responds “You are too young for that…..First you must study the basic subjects, those you are able to comprehend.” But already when Elie arrives in the concentration camp he starts to doubt in god because he sees a truck unloading little children in a huge fire. After all the new arrivals start to pray a death prayer for themselves but Elie only thinks “The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (p.33) He can’t imagine that there is a good and almighty god when as
Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust with the help of his own motivation and encouraging self-mind. His religious upbringing taught him that God is everywhere, and that without him the world would have nothing. Wiesel learns that God is good and that because he is everywhere, His serenity touches everything around him, causing the world to be good as well. As the novel progresses, the Holocaust, as well as the social issues that occur, challenges Wiesel’s faith. God is good and God will protect his and the world around him, was taught to Wiesel. Yet, he experiences evil in his daily life through his environment. Wiesel’s faith becomes question and therefore, he begins to silence himself. By silencing himself, he is able to listen more to his surroundings. Metaphorically, Wiesel is listening for God. While his faith begins to waver, he listens for God's callings to come and save him
Mr. Wiesel had intended this book to describe a period of time in his life that had been dark and sorrowful. This novel is based on a survivor of the greatest Holocaust in history, Eliezer Wiesel and his journey of being a Jew in 1944. The journey had started in Sighet, Transylvania, where Elie spent his childhood. During the Second World War, Germans came to Elie and his family’s home town. They brought with them unnecessary evil and despair to mankind. Shortly after young Elie and thousands of other Jews were forced from their habitats and torn from their rights of being human. They were sent to different concentration camps. Elie and his family were sent to Auschwitz, a concentration and extermination camp. It would be the last time Elie sees his mother and little sister, Tzipora. The first sights of Auschwitz were terrifying. There were big flames coming from the burning of bodies and the crematoriums. The Jews had no idea of what to expect. They were not told what was about to happen to them. During the concentration camp, there was endless death and torture. The Jews were starved and were treated worse than cattle. The prisoners began to question their faith in God, wondering why God himself would
During the ongoing brutality of the concentration camp, Elie wonders who god is doing this to him. In the beginning of the book, Elie was deeply religious. We know this because of him crying during prayers and the constant studying of god. While Elie is being tortured for the first time he is growing angrier and angrier. He is watching
Book Report on Elie Wiesel's Night. Elie tells of his hometown, Sighet, and of Moshe the Beadle. He tells of his family and his three sisters, Hilda, Béa, and the baby of the family, Tzipora. Elie is taught the cabala by Moshe the Beadle.
Elie Wiesel was once very spiritually grounded, however as he lost his faith he began to become less humane. In Elie’s strive to be more in tune with God, he tries to read the Kabbalah, a sacred Jewish passage, prematurely. Elie even compares praying to breathing when he says, “Why did I pray? Strange question...Why did I breathe?” (Wiesel 4). Elie’s faith is so strong he could not imagine a world where he did not pray, much like he could not imagine not breathing. However, he knows the exact moment he lost his faith. He delves into this moment and remembers it as, “the moment that murdered my God” (Wiesel 34). In his eyes, something that was so close to him, like his faith, is a significant loss and is a significant shift in his identity. He struggles to maintain his faith and begins to question God’s existence, and His audacity for the torment he is subjected throughout the Holocaust. Although Elie Wiesel may seem like a brute in his eyes, in comparison to other victims he is on the fence between human and