In 1956 Elie Wiesel published his memoir “Night” based on his experiences in the Holocaust. Wiesel recalls life before being moved to a concentration camp. Wiesel shares the challenges he faced, the harsh environment, and the constant losses. Due to his experiences Wiesel changed throughout his time at the camps such as his relationship with God, his relationship with his father, and shifts his view of humankind. Wiesel was very devoted to his faith and had a strong belief in God. He dedicated much of his time to learning Kabbalah with his teacher Moishe the Beadle. The difficult and harsh environment at the Auschwitz concentration caused a turning point for Wiesel’s belief. After discovering that people were being burned Wiesel no longer had …show more content…
After being separated from his mother and sisters Wiesel’s only sense of home was his father which led to a growth in their bond. Once his father discovered that he might be going to the gas chambers he wanted to give Wiesel everything he had to help him “My inheritance… “Don't talk like that, Father.” I was on the verge of breaking into sobs. “I don’t want you to say such things. Keep the spoon and knife. You will need them as much as I. We’ll see each other tonight, after work.” (75) The two endured so much together, and grew such a tight bond. So it pained Wiesel that on a long journey to Buchenwald in line for the showers his father began to give up “I could have screamed in anger. To have lived and endured so much, was I going to let my father die now?> Now that we would be able to take a good hot shower and lie down? “Father!” I howled. “Father! Get up! Right now! You will kill yourself.” …show more content…
His experiences in the Holocaust changed his view on humankind. Not long after his arrival to Auschwitz he was on a procession heading to the crematorium. He noticed flames but soon saw the harsh reality of what humans are capable of “Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes… children thrown into the flames. (Is it any wonder that ever since then, sleep tends to elude me?)” (32) It hurt Wiesel when he discovered that his father was being beat by his own neighbors. It gave him another reason to not view human kind in a positive light “One more stab to the heart. One more reason to hate. One less reason to love.”
The Holocaust was a horrible event where the Nazis killed six million Jews and five million Gentiles. One of the most celebrated survivors of this awful event and the winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, Eliezer Wiesel, wrote a memoir about the event called Night, where you can see Elie changes throughout his years in the Holocaust. Elie’s horrid traumatic experiences from the Holocaust altered his relationship with God and his physical appearance. Because of the Holocaust, Elie’s relationship with God adjusted.
At the beginning of the book Eli Wiesel was very devout Jew who believe very strongly in his faith. He spent most of his time praying during the day and during the night. “I spent my days in the synagogue and studied the Torah. At night
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany sent over 6 million Jewish people into concentration camps. Elie Wiesel’s Night is a book detailing his experiences in these camps and the various atrocities committed by the Nazis to both him and the rest of the prisoners, which included his father. These things affected his psyche, his attitude, and his faith. Elie’s view of God slowly changes throughout the book, directly caused by what the Nazis did to Elie and his father.
A fellow prisoner tells Wiesel the harsh reality that he is "... in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father." (pg 110) These words stick with Wiesel as, for a moment, he entertains the idea of prioritising his own survival over his father’s, even thinking to himself
After the death march to Buchenwald concentration camp, Wiesel’s father Shlomo’s health and strength begin rapidly deteriorating as he gets sick with dysentery. Wiesel is a very conscientious person, and he continues giving his father his ration and attending to him until the very end. Despite this, even cracks in Wiesel’s conscience begin forming as a result of the desperation and life or death reality that he faced. When the Blockälteste of the barrack tells Wiesel that he should stop sacrificing himself for his father, Wiesel thinks to himself “He was right, I thought deep down, not daring to admit it to myself. Too late to save your old father … You could have two rations of bread, two rations of soup …”
In the awful conditions that Wiesel had endured, death was a common wish; but Wiesel had to live for his father. In this we see a constant struggle with himself between what he wishes for himself, and what
While his father was beaten, Wiesel “had watched it all happening without moving”(54)-- he kept silent. He pondered to himself, “In fact, I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What’s more, if I felt anger in that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn’t he have avoided Idek’s wrath? That’s what life in the concentration camps had made of me.
After the death of his father, Wiesel feels empty, but at the same time feels a sense of relief. Before he passed, Wiesel’s father was one of his main motives that kept him going strong. After his death though, he starts to realize that he was neglecting himself. He was angry and frustrated with God about his father falling ill, that he forgot about himself. He begins to forgive god.
This later on as a big effect on Wiesel and how he survived the horrifying experience in the camps. When wiesel was first deporeted to the camp he first arrived at Buna Werke labor camp, a subcamp of Auschwitz III-Monowitz where him and his father were separated from his sisters and mother. They were forced to work under shameful, cruel conditions. Then they were transferred to other Nazi camps and on their way to the finally camp was forced to march to Buchenwald where his father died after being beaten by a German soldier, just three months before the camp was liberated. Wiesel’s
Throughout the memoir, Wiesel talks about how disgusted he is with how the conditions he and the rest of the prisoners are in have destroyed family bonds and have made everyone selfish and destroyed any compassion they’ve had for each other. He believes that the family bond should be strong and constant, like the bond he has with his father. He continuously explains how he felt like his father depended on him, and that it was his own responsibility to care for his father as much as he could by staying alive as long as possible. On page 86 while talking about how his father was the only reason he wouldn’t let himself die, he says, “ I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me?
His perspective on helping others changed after the Holocaust. Wiesel started to disconnect from his father after his father started to become sick and could not survive by himself. His father told him that the only person he should be looking out for is himself and nobody else. For only a moment he wished that his dad died for him to only look out for himself. Soon after he could not find his dad he felt guilt that he wished death upon his own dad.
Wiesel's loss of faith was brought on by the absence of God. This resulted in him questioning why it was God's will to allow Jews to suffer and die the way they had. Another portrayal of religious confliction within Wiesel was the statement of his faith being consumed by the flames along with the corpses of children (Wiesel 34). Therefore, he no longer believed God was the almighty savior everyone had set Him out to be or even present before them. To conclude, his experiences within Nazi confinement changed what he believed in and caused him to change how he thought and began questioning God because of the actions He allowed to take
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer Wiesel narrates the legendary tale of what happened to him and his father during the Holocaust. In the introduction, Wiesel talks about how his village in Seghet was never worried about the war until it was too late. Wiesel’s village received advanced notice of the Germans, but the whole village ignored it. Throughout the entire account, Wiesel has many traits that are key to his survival in the concertation camps.
The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in history. It just so happened to be the cause of six million deaths. While there are countless beings who experienced such trauma, it is impossible to hear everyone's side of the story. However, one man, in particular, allowed himself to speak of the tragedies. Elie Wiesel addressed the transformation he underwent during the Holocaust in his memoir, Night.
Wiesel addresses not only his own situation, but also the effect survival had inwards other fathers and sons in the camp. The memoir