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Holocaust narrative essay
Holocaust narrative essay
Holocaust narrative essay
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Some say a picture is worth a thousand words, others say that language has power. When Elie Wiesel wrote his memoirs regarding his experience with his Holocaust, he had to “conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries” (Wiesel, pg. ix). Throughout this book, the imagery used leaves no question in the reader’s mind about the horrors that this man experienced. He did not have to create a new language, but he did combine aspects of our current language that are not often combined. His word choice and use of subtle description made his message in this book clearer than any picture ever could. While describing an experience that a friend told him about, Wiesel writes “they shot the prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks” (Wiesel, pg. 7). The words used in this quote are used individually on a daily basis, but the power they hold shows through in this quote. When describing a traumatic experience, many people would often use superfluous words to exaggerate their point; Wiesel on the other hand, takes almost a minimalistic approach ...
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.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
Most historical events, whether beneficial or detrimental to society, bear witnesses. Regardless of how many total were affected by the event, each person owns a personal account of what they endured during the event. Elie Wiesel, author of Night, expresses the personal account of Elizer, a Jewish teenager, who fought to stay alive during the holocaust, and shows the importance of witness accounts, the will to survive, and the remembrance of past historical events. Night encompasses the idea of “Literature of Witness” by simultaneously showing how millions of people were affected by the holocaust and how each person, principally Elizer, has their own personal story to tell to understand and remember that horrendous time.
Along with rhetorical appeals, Wiesel also uses many rhetorical devices such as parallelism and anaphora. Wiesel depicts parallelism when he says, “to fight fascism, to fight dictatorship, to fight Hitler” (Wiesel lines 103-104). The parallelism and anaphora, in the quote, provide emphasis on the discrimination and abuse that has taken place around the world. Repeating the same initial phrase shows the significance of the words Wiesel is speaking. Wiesel mentions the victims of this extreme tragedy when he states,” for the children in the world, for the homeless for the victims of injustice, the victims of destiny and society.” (Wiesel lines 17-19). This use of anaphora and parallelism emphasize the amount of people the Holocaust has affected and impacted. The parallelism being used adds value to his opinions and balances the list of people Wiesel is making in his speech.
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
Since the publication of, Night by Eliezer Wiesel, the holocaust has been deemed one of the darkest times in humanity, from the eradication of Jewish people to killing of innocents. Wiesel was one of the Jewish people to be in the holocaust and from his experience he gave us a memoir that manages to capture the dark side of human nature in the holocaust. He demonstrates the dark side of human nature through the cruelty the guards treat the Jews and how the Jews became cold hearted to each other. Wiesel uses foreshadowing and imagery, and metaphors to describe these events.
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).
When the author of Night, Elie Wiesel, arrives at Auschwitz, the Jewish people around him, the Germans, and himself have yet to lose their humanity. Throughout the Holocaust, which is an infamous genocide that imprisoned many Jewish people at concentration camps, it is clear that the horrors that took place here have internally affected all who were involved by slowly dehumanizing them. To be dehumanized means to lose the qualities of a human, and that is exactly what happened to both the Germans and the Jewish prisoners. Wiesel has lived on from this atrocious event to establish the dehumanization of all those involved through his use of animal imagery in his memoir Night to advance the theme that violence dehumanizes both the perpetrator and the victim.
The best teachers have the capabilities to teach from first hand experience. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel conveys his grueling childhood experiences of survival to an audience that would otherwise be left unknown to the full terrors of the Holocaust. Night discloses mental and physical torture of the concentration camps; this harsh treatment forced Elie to survive rather than live. His expert use of literary devices allowed Wiesel to grasp readers by the hand and theatrically display to what extent the stress of survival can change an individual’s morals. Through foreshadowing, symbolism, and repetition, Wiesel’s tale proves that the innate dark quality of survival can take over an individual.
In Night, Elie Wiesel descriptively portrays the Holocaust and the experiences he has in each part of his survival. From the ghettos to the Death March and liberation, Elie Wiesel shares his story of sadness and suffering. Specifically Wiesel speaks about his short experience in the Sighet ghetto, a historically accurate recount illustrating the poor living conditions, the Judenrat and Jewish life in the ghetto as well as the design and purpose of the two Sighet ghettos. Wiesel’s description of the Sighet ghettos demonstrates the similar characteristics between the Sighet ghetto and other ghettos in Germany and in German-annexed territories.
It is reported that over 6 million Jews were brutally murdered in the Holocaust, but there were a very few who were able to reach the liberation, and escape alive. There were many important events that occurred in Elie Wiesel’s Night, and for each and every event, I was equally, if not more disturbed than the one before. The first extremely disturbing event became a reality when Eliezer comprehended that there were trucks filled with babies that the Nazi’s were throwing the children into the crematorium. Unfortunately, the sad truth of the murdering babies was clearly presented through, “Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there, […] babies”, (Wiesel, Night, 32). This was one of the most disturbing events of the narrative for myself and truly explained the cruelty and torture of the Holocaust.
Authors sometimes refer to their past experiences to help cope with the exposure to these traumatic events. In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the devastating and horrendous events of the Holocaust, one of the world’s highest points for man’s inhumanity towards man, brutality, and cruel treatment, specifically towards the Jewish Religion. His account takes place from 1944-1945 in Germany while beginning at the height of the Holocaust and ending with the last years of World War II. The reader will discover through this novel that cruelty is exemplified all throughout Wiesel's, along with the other nine million Jews’, experiences in the inhumane concentration camps that are sometimes referred to as “death factories.”
Pages 451, 452 -. Schuman, Michael A. Elie Wiesel: Voices From the Holocaust. Hillside - Enslow -. Publishers, Inc., 1994. http://www.
(Commire 175) says Wiesel in an interview. This shows that the Holocaust is so ingrained in his mind that he cannot talk about the subject without it hurting him. It may also represent how he respects his friends who died. Throughout Elbagirs article, “Child Soldiers Battle Traumas in Congo Rehab,” she mentions how the children, who were forced to join the army, now struggle with many problems, mentally. “They all have abandonment issues,” Rahima Choffy states.
In this tiny novel, you will get to walk right into a gruesome nightmare. If only then, it was just a dream. You would witness and feel for yourself of what it is like to go through the unforgettable journey that young Eliezer Wiesel and his father had endured in the greatest concentration camp that shook the history of the entire world. With only one voice, Eliezer Wiesel’s, this novel has been told no better. Elie's voice will have you emotionally torn apart. The story has me questioning my own wonders of how humanity could be mistreated in such great depths and with no help offered.