Journal Entry #1
Wiesel says this because he wants to keep the Holocaust from happening again. He probably meant that it is selfish to keep something to yourself when it is important and you can prevent it from happening. When he was being tortured, the other citizens did nothing to help. Maybe he just wants to make up for what others did not do for him.
I agree and disagree with his statement. Some things are better to be left unsaid and others are not. In his case however, it was best to share his story. If these false accusations about Jews are still believed, then they would never be treated with respect. We now know today that these statements are false thanks to survivors like Elie Wiesel.
Chapter One
In chapter one, the Jews of Sighet have gone from a normal lifestyle to being kept in ghettos, waiting for their transportation. Moishe the Beadle got the first glimpse of what is soon to happen. When he was deported, he had to witness the death of the other prisoners, including infants. He survived with a wounded leg and came back to warn the others. However, no one would listen to him, not even Eliezer. Moishe became lifeless and the joy in his eyes were gone.
Eliezer was very religious but his father was very unsentimental and didn’t support him in his beliefs. When rumors started to arouse, he begged his father to leave, but he wouldn’t. Once the curtain finally rose, it was too late for the Jews. They were kept in ghettos until they were to be transported. They had to pack up their things and then were sent to the smaller ghetto. Now they are in the cattle cars, waiting for their departure.
Chapter Two
After two days of travel, they arrived at Kaschau, where the ill was sent to the hospital car. Mrs. Schachter was...
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...nd the doctor refused to help him because there was nothing he could do. He started to hallucinate and the others made fun of him. Did they not realize they suffer the same fate as him? When Eliezer woke, his father was no longer there. Possibly taken to the crematorium, all Eliezer could think was that he was free at last. What happened to not wanting to be separated from his father? He had become selfish and it is now hard to feel sympathy for him.
Chapter Nine
Now the inmates only care about food. On April 11, the Jews were finally liberated. Still, they can only think about food. I can’t imagine what it would be like living without decent food. However, why do they not care about the loved ones they have lost? Finally Eliezer gets to look in a mirror, and it must have been a terrifying sight, because it haunts him to this day. Everything haunts him to this day.
When asked by Moshe the Beadle the reason why he prayed, Eliezer could not come up with an answer. Even before being deported to concentration camp, Eliezer still prayed. Things begin to change when Eliezer arrives at concentration camp in Auschwitz. After witnessing the incineration of small children, Eliezer expresses deep resentment towards God for remaining silent and allowing this to happen.
During the marches between camps some of these broken souls would drop to the side of the road where they were shot and killed by a Nazi guard. Eliezer saw others do this, and soon he was thinking of joining
In his first account in the story, he is a young boy of 13 years, in the small town of Sighet, Transylvania; In Hungary. He is very religious and is ready to learn more about his faith. It is 1941, when some Jews are taken from Sighet. Years pass until Elie is 15 years old now; Hitler is hovering above European Jewish citizens with a iron fist. With the laws passed in Germany, the Holocaust begins, and The Germans invade foreign land in an attempt to purify the Aryan race. Germans appear in Sighet, and are polite and kind and take residence in multiple families homes. Slowly overtime Jews were labeled, then segregated into ghettos. Soon after Elie and his family learns of the transports to the labor camps. They are then transported; through this misfortune and grief, Elie loses his faith in god, and loses hope. This is where the story truly begins, in the labor camp of Birkenau. Elie and his father were stripped of all their possessions and given painful haircuts, as well as clothes equivalent by those of rags; Here the people are worked like dogs and Elie now endures the pain of the labor camps, both emotionally and physically. He loses sight of his mother and sister who are
Eliezer had guilty thoughts of him relieving himself the burden his father put on him, this showed him that the corruption of society had affected him.
Madame Schächter, one of the many Jewish women to be captured, after being on the train without food and water begins to crack and starts to scream out she sees fire. In
Throughout the whole journey, Elie was lucky enough to be able to stay with her father. Through the text, one of Elie's main focuses is ensuring that his father is taken care of and no matter what happened they were to remain united. After rumors that the Russians are approaching begin to spread, the Germans begin to move the prisoners to smaller camps in the woods in order to seclude their crimes. Elie had to somehow move on with his life, a seemingly impossible task.
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 were 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 has lost his faith in God because of all he has been through.
The truth is, he took a vow of silence about what had happened in the concentration camps. Actually, he had not spoken about it for ten years (Elie Wiesel Biography). Maybe not talking made it easier to not think about the horror. People tend to not talk about what they want to forget. Then, for those who believe in fate, Elie Wiesel was scheduled to interview Francois Mauriac. According to the forward written by Francois Mauriac in Night, their conversation went from work to personal. Mr. Mauriac was expressing how horrible it must have been for the Jews crammed in the cattle cars, and Elie Wiesel decided to break his silence and said, “I was one of them.” As a result of this conversation, Mr. Mauriac convinced Mr. Wiesel that his story was important and needed to be told, “he could put a face to the suffering of the Holocaust”. (The Life and Work of Wiesel). During a lecture upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize he reminded everyone that while they were prisoners, they were stripped of everything human. As a result, they lived in a complete void. They were constantly told to forget everything, forget where they came from, and to forget who they were. Mr. Wiesel described how the memory protects its wounds by trying to forget painful events. More importantly, Elie Wiesel stated that, “For us, forgetting was never an option.” Those that survived felt that they needed to document what they had witnessed.
...ith his near-death experiences that cause him trauma. As he and his father invert roles, and Elie becomes the bread-winning patriarch of the bunch, obligated to tending and making sure his father is fed properly, Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood evaporate with his restoration of faith in humanity. He learns that among the prisoners, fending for their own individual weight is the only way to survive. Separate from Elie and his father’s relationship throughout, fathers and sons collide, and friends betray other friends. But Elie’s own weight comes from his father, and yet when he refuses to betray him also, Elie’s own bravery reveals itself, making him the key survivor out of all of them. While he chooses to battle out his conscience to decipher these decisions to survive for his family or for he himself, he gains courage, and the courage to oblige to his faith.
Samuels starts out explaining the background of Elie, a child who has a great love for religion. Then, Nazis come and occupy his native town of Sighet. Although held captured and clueless to where they were going, the Jews were indeed optimistic. They had no reason not to be, the Nazis were treating them as they were of importance. However, the optimism was to come to a halt. After arresting the Jewish leader, the Jews were sent to ghettos, then into camps. It wasn't until they reached Auschwitz where Elie for the first time smelt burning flesh. Then the eight words that Elie couldn't forget, "Men to the left! Women to the right!" He was then left with his father, who for the whole trip he would depend on to survive. It was this, in which made him lose his religiousness. In the months to come Elie and his father lived like animals. Tragically, in the end his father past away, and to amazement Elie had not wept. Samuels did an overall remarkable job on this review; however, there were still some parts that could have been improved.
Moshe is taken away and sees an entire train of people murdered by the Gestapo. He returns to Sighet and tries to warn them, but no one believes his story. The Nazis come and take over Sighet. Elie is moved to a ghetto, along with all the other Jews in Sighet. They are soon taken away on a train to Auschwitz.
Eliezer’s horrible experiences at Auschwitz left him caught up in his sorrows and anger toward God. His loss of faith in God arises at Auschwitz. He doubts arise when he first sees the furnace pits in which the Nazis are burning babies. This horrifying experience ...
...n so much as get up to see what his father wanted, which was just to see Elie again before he died. “The officer wielded his club and dealt him a violent blow to the head. I didn't move. I was afraid of another blow, this time to my head. My father groaned once more, I heard. Eliezer... I could see that he was still breathing- in gasp. I didn't move."(111)
Eliezer loses faith in god. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. "Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul and turned my dreams to dust..."(pg 32). Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of his misery. "Why should I bless his name? The eternal, lord of the universe, the all-powerful and terrible was silent..."(pg 31). Eliezer is confused, because he does not know why the Germans would kill his face, and does not know why god could let such a thing happen. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(pg 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and courage to live.
The motivation Eliezer has to endure is to keep his father alive. Even though his father is a constant burden, Eliezer is determined never to desert his father like Rabbi’s Eliahou’s son attempts. Even when Chlomo becomes sick with dysentery, Eliezer stays by his side. He gives his father his own soup, forfeits his own bread, and even tries to get a doctor to help. “For a ration of bread, I managed to change beds with a prisoner in my father’s bunk…� (1...