People may say that the people who survived the Holocaust were lucky, but in reality they weren’t. They faced horrors that are unimaginable, they changed and they have to live with the monstrosity that the faced. This essay is about how Elie Wiesel, holocaust survivor and winner of Nobel peace prize, changed during the Holocaust. The book Night is a novel about how Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust and how he changed during the Holocaust. The book shows how a Elie changed in the concentration camp In the novel, “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie was affected by the events in the book because he, was poignant shifted, losing/lost faith, and his life in the camps. The first way that Elie Wiesel was affected in the Holocaust was emotionally. Noted in the book “ I shall not describe my life during that period. It no longer mattered. Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore (113 page).” This piece of evidence shows that Elie was affected emotionally after his father's death because he no longer cared what happened in his life in camp and he was emotionally hurt. Nevertheless, he said that after his dad died he only had one desire, to eat . On page 39 …show more content…
As stated in the text “Why would I bless Him(God). He causes thousands of children to burn. He created Auschwitz.” (67 page). This shows that he hates God for making millions of people to die and making the killing center, Auschwitz and other camps. In fact, as noted on page 69 “ I no longer accepted God's silence… I turned that act(not fasting) into a symbol of rebellion of protest against Him. “ This shows that Elie no longer accepts God for allowing this to happen and will not pray to God because of this. In addition, ironically in the beginning of the book he wanted to became a person who studied God ,but towards the end of the book he didn’t believe in God after all he has when though and the horrors he had
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreElie Wiesel writes about his personal experience of the Holocaust in his memoir, Night. He is a Jewish man who is sent to a concentration camp, controlled by an infamous dictator, Hitler. Elie is stripped away everything that belongs to him. All that he has worked for in his life is taken away from him instantly. He is even separated from his mother and sister. On the other side of this he is fortunate to survive and tell his story. He describes the immense cruel treatment that he receives from the Nazis. Even after all of the brutal treatment and atrocities he experiences he does not hate the world and everything in it, along with not becoming a brute.
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.
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
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.
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
The Holocaust survivor Abel Herzberg has said, “ There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times.” The Holocaust is one of the most horrific events in the history of mankind, consisting of the genocide of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally handicapped and many others during World War II. Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany, and his army of Nazis and SS troops carried out the terrible proceedings of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel is a Jewish survivor of the Nazi death camps, and suffers a relentless “night” of terror and torture in which humans were treated as animals. Wiesel discovers the “Kingdom of Night” (118), in which the history of the Jewish people is altered. 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 his faith and his 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? (67). Throughout the Holocaust, Wiesel’s faith is not permanently shattered. Although after his father dies, his faith in god and religion is shaken to the core, and arguably gone. Wiesel, along with most prisoners, lose their faith in God. Wiesel’s loss of religion becomes the loss of identity, humanity, selfishness, and decency.
“A traumatic experience robs you of your identity,” says Doctor Bill, an author and business entrepreneur. In the book “Night” written by Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, Elie describes his life during the traumatic event. Elie was taken from his home in Sighet, Transylvania in 1944 to be put into a concentration camp. He was only 15 at this time. Throughout the book, you can clearly see how Elie’s identity is altered in many ways, for worse as well as better, as more and more terrible things occur to him as well as others.
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...
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...
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
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
It was the new year,and a bunch of the Jews in the camp gathered to celebrate by praising their God. Elie doesn’t participate in the praising he is rather angry or disappointed at God. “You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed and burned, what do they do? They praise before you!” Some people have not yet lost faith in the camp and they worship him. Why would God let this happen to his people, his servants and praisers? Some even considering fasting when they were practically starving to death. (Later in the book they kill each other for food. God is just toying with them at that point.)
Starving, burning, shooting, beating, and death. These are just a few examples that tormented Elie.The parents should have listened when they recieved their first warning signs that the germans were approaching, little did they know their future would be filled with hardship and pain. Concentration camps were no place for a human being to encounter daily. Nazi’s decided that blonde hair and blue eyes are what made you acceptable to the world, and others without were worthless, especially jewish people.These countless acts against jews made some question their religion and or even the existence of god.
Elie has experienced many hardship. He was 15 when his childhood was robbed by the Germans army. Not only that but part of his family were murdered and he never got to say goodbye. His life was ripped apart and left in pieces. Even after all of that, the SS didn't show any mercy. They were ripped of their homes, families, clothes, and finally dignity. Nothing was left of him. The only thing keeping him alive would probably be his father, otherwise I pretty sure he would have ended his life long ago. He has lost his motivation to life and his faith for God has also been shaken. I think my take away from this is to treasure everything, everyone, and every moment like it's my last. I have to respect everyone as an individual and an equal to me.
Both are correct in their own ways, as Elie continues to lose faith in God as well as question God’s reasonings to why he betrayed those who believed in him, “These men here, whom You have betrayed… they pray before You! They praise Your name!”(64). Elie soon realized the power that came with losing faith. By questioning God, Elie now had the power over God as the “accuser” while God was the “accused” (65). Elie also felt the same strength over God when he ate rather than fasting, “I saw in the gesture an act (eating bread and soup) of rebellion” (66). Despite having felt that surge of strength, he creates a void in himself where his faith, which Elie heavily relied on, once was. By ceasing to believe in God, Elie has lost a key