Book Report On Night By Elie Wiesel

Eliezer and his father got separated from his mother and younger sisters. For months in the concentration camps, Eliezer witnessed inhumane doings that scarred him for the rest of his life. He was forced to work at Buna, a factory, and run on a daily basis to keep himself alive. He became malnourished because of the unappetizing food that they served. He and other Jews were punished and beaten for no reason.

Their story begins with Eliezer living a normal childhood in Sighet. Shlomo, Eliezers father, was a well respected man

Night opens up with the story about Eliezer and his family of Orthodox Jews who make sure to strictly follow all Jewish traditions and laws. Throughout the book, Elie develops his thesis, that inhumanity toward other humans can lead to a loss of morality, through the story telling of the horrible events that happened to him throughout his life, specifically during his time spent in the work camps. Eliezer is studying the Talmund, or Jewish Oral Law, and the Cabbala (Wiesel 3-4). Going again his father’s wishes he finds a teacher named Moshe the Beadle. Around the time he finds Moshe, the Hungarians expel all foreign Jews from Sighet.

He is much more involved in religion than the rest of his family. When his father asks “why do you pray?” Eliezer’s response is shocked at first, as if it was a ridiculous question to ask. To him, religion and prayer is so innate and important that it’s simply second nature. His decline in religious faith is a direct consequence of the inhumane circumstances of concentration camps.

Auschwitz: German Nazis made over 40,000 concentration camps between the years of 1933 and 1945 concentration camps were just like prisons. The “ prisoners “ were kept in extremely jarring ways. Auschwitz is one of the biggest concentration camps located in Southern Poland. Auschwitz is one of the biggest camps because it consist of three other camps into one like an assembly line. The three camps were a prison camp, a exterminated camp and a slave labor camp.

Passing through German towns, people walking by threw bread into the train to watch the Jews savage for a tiny crumb of bread, and some fights resulted in death for one. They finally arrived in Buchenwald after treacherous days of suffering. They started the journey with one hundred men, but only twelve managed to survive the journey. Elie’s sick father was on his death bed when they evacuated the train, he said to Elie: “I can’t go on…. This is the end….I’m going to die here….”

This is illustrated on page 33 when Eliezer states, “Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” Not only does this show that Eliezer is agitated by God’s actions, it shows that he is blaming God rather than the Germans for the malicious and abusive acts in the concentration camp. Elie moved from being deeply devoted to abandoning all belief in God.

In the camps, hangings were always publicly showcased. Eliezer is so accustomed to it that this gruesome spectacle no longer emotionally affects him in the way that it normally would. During and after the execution ceremonies, he and the other prisoners make casual remarks such as, “I remember that I found the soup excellent that evening” (Wiesel 46). Death is so common that Eliezer is more worried about being fed. That is, until the hanging of a young boy.

Throughout the book “Night”, Elie battles with his faith and at times almost gives it up. Eliezer’s struggle with his faith is a dominant conflict in Night. Throughout the story, the holocaust proves that Elie’s faith is a necessary element for his survival. It preserves his sanity whether or not it is based in reality.

Written from the perspective of a teenager, Elie Wiesel explained his experience during World War II and the Holocaust. Eliezer grew up in the small transylvanian town, Sighet, located in Hungarian Transylvania. Before the war, Eliezer was very religious and would often go to the synagogue to pray. Eliezer would frequently involve himself with religious stating, “I continued to devote myself to my studies, Talmud during the day and Kabbalah at night”(Wiesel 8). Eliezer would talk with Moishe the Beadle about religion and the Kabbalah.

The Night considers the main problem of Judaism and Christianity is precisely that of building a theology and an ethics of responsibility. In Elie Wiesel’s view, this is expressed through the responsibility generated by an existential memory “Do not ever struggle against memory. Even when it is painful; it will help you, it will reward you, it will make you richer. After all, what would culture be without memory? What would love for a friend be without the possibility of remembering it the next day?

The expedition Elie Wiesel endured amid the, in my opinion, inexplicable Holocaust subsists in Night. Aforementioned, all information established in Night predicates on real-life occurrences recited by Elie. In the Jews ' time of peril and prejudice, a Jewish family is condemned to congregate with other Jewish families in concentration camps; where they deviate from their spiritual life and become emaciated thralls of the Schutzstaffel. Eliezer, the protagonist of the story, struggles to conserve his faith in a benevolent God throughout the Holocaust; but he emerged with his religious devotion tainted, yet intact.

Eliezer has to learn how to adapt to not having as food as he used to, being beaten for no reason, and watching daily hangings. Eliezer specifically remembers one particular hanging of a young boy, a pipel, whose master has been gathered arms for the resistance. Eliezer said “But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing… ” Eliezer remembers how the child cried and remained alive for the next half an hour, before his body finally gives out and the child dies. Towards the end of the book, as the group that Eliezer and his father are in keeps running around Germany, and Eliezer has a choice to give up and die on the side of a road, but he continues to run because of his father. Eliezer says “My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me.

He is Jewish, but he wants to go deeper into his religion and learn more about it. He becomes good friends with a man named Moishe the Beadle. Moishe is very knowledgeable about the religion and he teaches Eliezer a lot. Times passes, and soon Jews are being forced to move into ghettos. The ghettos are where they are to stay until they are evacuated from their towns to go somewhere else.

Eliezer and his father rely on one another to survive through the Holocaust. Together they encounter the cruelty of the Nazis, the lack of compassion from the prisoners, as well as the difficulty of simply surviving. They remain strong together unlike other father-son relationships seen in the novel. A majority of the prisoners gravitate towards self preservation while Eliezer chooses to remain with his father. Eliezer does exhibit ambivalence in continuing to help his father because the conditions of the Holocaust continually make it harder to make others a priority than oneself.