Night By Elie Wiesel”Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned mylife into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shallI forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children,whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Nevershall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall Iforget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desireto live.
Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my souland turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I amcondemned to live as long as God Himself. Never. ” -Elie Wiesel TheHolocaust-the mass murder of European Jews by the Nazis during World War II.
Itwas the unthinkable, the horrific murder of 6 million Jews and millions ofcivilians of different ethnic and racial backgrouds. It was average men enteringthe German army and turned into Nazis, cold-blooded killers. It was theconnotation of Holocaust which became Night, by Elie Wiesel. This paints apicture, full of vivid imagery and truth, about the genocide of his own people.
Elie witnesses the starvation, brutal beating, and eventual death of hisfriends, family, and fellow Jews. Wiesel, himself, survived Auschwitz, Buna,Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz, all German concentration camps, where atrocities suchas cremation and murder hung thickly in the air like a heavy cologne. BornSeptember 30, 1928, Eliezer Wiesel led a life representative of many Jewishchildren. Growing up in a small village in Romania, his world revolved aroundfamily, religious study, community, and God. Yet his family, community, and hisinnocent faith were destroyed upon the deportation of his village in 1944.
Oneof the main topics in this book is how Elie, a boy of strong religious faith,along with many of his fellow jews, lose their faith in God due to the horrificeffects of the concentration camps. Elie Wiesel lived his early childhood in thetown of Transylvania, in Hungary, during the early 1940s. At a young age, Elietook a strong interest in Jewish religion, while he spent most of his timestudying the Talmud. Eventually he makes aquaintances with Moshe the Beadle whotakes Elie under his wing, and also instructs him more in depth of the ways ofthe Talmud and cabbala.
Elie is taught to question God for answers throughMoshe’s instruction. Moshe is sent away to a concentration camp, and upon hisreturn, Elie finds that he has changed dramatically. This is a foreshadowing ofwhat will become of Elie’s faith in the strength and power of God. “Moshehad changed.
. . He no longer talked to me of God or the cabbala, but only of whathe had seen. “(4) The first evidence of Elie’s loss of faith, is while hequestions God during the selection process. This process is concerned withseparating the young, strong, and healthy Jews, from the old, weak, sickly,and/or infants.
The Jews were separated from their loved ones who wereimmediately sent to the crematory or burned in large fire pits. Elie saysgoodbye to his mother and sister, unknowing that it will be the last time thathe will ever see them again. Many of his fellow Jews began to pray and recitethe Kaddish, a Jewish prayer for the dead, with hopes to console their owngrievances for the loss they had suffered. However, Elie questions, “Whyshould I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful andTerrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?”(31) Elie witnesses a loadof children being dumped into a pit of flames which he labels as the “Angel ofDeath,” and at this point, the diminishing effects of the first night of camplife are already taking a toll on Elie’s religious faith and personalself-worth. The final deterioration of Elie’s idea of God, where he renouncesall belief in His existence, is during the funeral of 3 Jewish males who werehanged the day before.
One of whom was a child, so mere in weight, whom struggle.
