Many of the Jews went through denial, because the news of the holocaust was to unrealistic to believe. In the novel there were many incidents in which the Jews were in denial. Some of the times when the people faced denial was when Moiche told the townspeople about the camps that were set up and they didn’t believe him, and when Ms. Schocter was beaten when no one believed her about the fire, and also when Elie didn’t think it was possible to kill of so many people so quickly and efficiently.
The Jews couldn’t believe what they were being told because the statements they were told by Moiche sounded impossible at the time, and that is why the jews were in denial. One of the incidents when the jews were in denial was when Moiche went around telling the people in the ghettos that they all are going to burn, one of the people that didn’t believe him said “He’s just trying to make us pity him, what an imagination he has!” (Wiesel 17). Moiche replied by saying “Jews, listen to me. It’s all I ask of you. I don’t want money or pity. Only listen to me” (Wiesel 17).
This quote shows that Moiche didn’t care for money even though he was homeless, and was telling the truth. The townspeople still denied the fact that there were concentration camps that they could be affected by. The townspeople were blinded by denial and couldn’t see that Moiche wasn’t telling them crazy things for attention but to save them, he also didn’t care for his life since all of his loved ones were lost in the concentration camps and was very selfless when he was spreading the bad news.
Another time when the jews did not believe the claims of someone else because of denial was when Ms. Shocter was screaming and yelling to get the message out of the concentration camps, but she was beaten in front of her child, because the Jews couldn’t believe what she was saying. At first Ms.
Shocter was not treated like this, she was told to be quiet and someone gave her a damp cloth to put on her forehead, but she screamed and moaned “Look at the fire! Look at the flames! Flames everywhere…” (Wiesel 35). Some felt sympathy for her and thought she was just thirsty like when someone on the train said “She is hallucinating because she is thirsty, poor woman… That’s why she speaks of flames devouring her…” (Wiesel 25). But after a while the people began to get angry because she just wouldn’t stop, she got several blows to her head that could have killed her, her kid was clinging to her and was crying but stopped after getting tired of crying. Someone in the background said “Keep her quiet! Make that madwoman shut up. She’s not the only one here” (Wiesel 36). A lot of denial can be seen throughout this scene in the story because many things are done to prevent Ms. Shocter from speaking the truth.
Another one of the main parts of the story where denial is portrayed is when the people as a whole are denying that the possibilities of killing of so many jews is impossible. People think that society is more modem now and that that Hitler will not be able to do them any harm. The thoughts of the majority of people can be shown in this long quote: “The Russian army’s making gigantic strides forward…Hitler won’t be able to do us any harm, even if he wants to,” and “Yes, we even doubted that he wanted to exterminate us. Was he going to wipe out a whole people? Could he exterminate a population scattered throughout so many countries’so many millions! What methods could he use? And in the middle of the twentieth century” (Wiesel 18). This can summarize the thoughts of almost all Jews that went through denial during the holocaust.
