The Price of Indifference Elie Weisel once said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, its indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, its indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” The harsh reality of indifference was encircling the Nazi concentration camps. The lack of concern or sympathy for the Jews was very evident and greatly perplexed Elie and his comrades. Indifference played a role in the holocaust in many different ways. Some of the most recognizable ways include the indifference of God, the indifference of people towards death, and the Germans indifference to the suffering of the Jews.
One way indifference plays a role in the holocaust is
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Before the Jews were put into designated ghettos, many tried to spread their stories. They would knock doors or share their story in different group settings to get their message out. Moishe the Beadle, a wise man who greatly influenced Elie growing up, did just this. Elie’s first hand account of the holocaust states, “Day after day, night after night, he went from one Jewish house to the next telling his story and that Malka, the young girl who lay dying for three days and that of Tobie, the tailor who begged to die before his sons were killed” (Weisel, Night 7). Moishe was feeling a great amount of indifference at this time in his life. By knocking doors, he hoped that his stories would resonate with the Jews and non-Jews and help change the way the Jews were being treated. The people around Moishe were taking this situation too jokingly. Along with Moishe’s experience, many others felt the indifference of people towards death at this time. A speech given by a teen at this time made a great point about this. She states, “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who stand by and do nothing as those acts of evil are committed” (“The Dangers of Indifference”). This example highlights one of the main problems of the indifference towards death from others. Those who watch and wait with no intentions of helping are the true problem. It is our duty as …show more content…
When Elie first started his Journey to the concentration camp, hundreds were crammed into tiny cattle cars with little room and almost no necessary products for life. Elie’s account states, “Crammed into cattle cars by the Hungarian police, they cried silently. The train disappeared over the horizon; all that was left was thick, dirty smoke” (Weisel, Night 6). This memory Elie shared with his audience shows how vulnerable Jews are at this time. The Germans didn’t care about the conditions and the heartache the Jews endured. When Elie finally arrives at Auschwitz, the sights he sees are horrendous. Immediately he sees “Infants tossed into the air and used as targets for the medicine guns” (Wiesel, Night 6). Elie’s first impression of Buchenwald is infants being brutally murdered. I can’t imagine how terrified he is to continue further into camp. The Germans were extremely insensitive towards the Jews and their feelings. From the start of the holocaust, The Germans indifference to the suffering of Jews was very
Throughout the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer, the protagonist, is transported and moved to numerous concentration camps. His story, which is corresponding to Wiesel’s biography, is representative to the lives of a billion other Jews. Jews were stripped away from their families, beliefs, identity, and freedom. They could no longer express their faith in God or have the human right to live where desired. During the holocaust, nothing was fair, everything was dark and cruel.
Indifference it’s what everyone sometimes thinks of when they remember the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a genocide that Adolf Hitler starts at the end of World War I, he wanted all Jewish people gone. Hitler was ruthless when it came to the
Zach Alderson Nelson Night 2 February 2023 Other Paragraph Thesis: However, the trauma Elie experiences when he enters the camp juxtaposed with the article “The Contributing Factors of Delayed-Onset Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms” reveals that trauma causes us to act in our own self-interest. To start, within the first five minutes of stepping into Auschwitz, Elie experiences his most memorable traumatic experience: a dump truckload of babies being thrown into a pit bound for their impending death. This can be seen on page 32 when Wiesel states,”A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children.
The concentration camp is in Poland. He was starved and badly treated.” Elie was sent to the camp and was starved. He was treated poorly and he was only 15 years old when he was sent to camp by the Nazis. At a young age Wiesel was sent to camp; he had to
The street we lived on, Serpent Street, was in the first ghetto”(11). These ghettos would only give a mere glimpse of what was to come in the next few years. The Jews of Sighet were then transported by cattle car to their first concentration camp named Birkenau. After this Elie was transported to many other concentration camps and these surroundings only became a source of constant terror and pain. An extreme example of the pain and terror he suffered is shown in this quote, “AT six O'CLOCK the bell rang.
Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, once said, “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.” During the Holocaust, 6 million European Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany because of the hate and intolerance towards them. There was a great deal of hate and intolerance during the Holocaust, but there were people who were able to fight against it. In different literature and films people fought hate and intolerance during the Holocaust by giving bread to a Jew, hiding a Jew in their houses, sneaking into a death camp to help a Jewish friend, and never giving up during hard times.
From 1941-1945 over 6 million Jews had died at the hands of the Nazis and Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was one of few who survived these horrors. He wrote about his experiences in his book Night. In this scene from Night by Elie Wiesel, he and dozens of others have been stuffed into cattle cars on trains, and people are throwing bread into the cars to watch the people in the cars fight for it. Wiesel explores dehumanization to demonstrate how changed people become because of the horrors that they had seen and experienced.
The Nazis showed brutality towards the Jews including Elie and his father acting as if they were subhuman. This was shown in the book when Elie said "...climb into the cars, eighty persons in each one." (22). This clearly shows how the Nazis did not care about the Jews a single bit as they overloaded them into cattle cars that were not meant for humans. “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
First of all, the indifference of people towards death played a role in the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was speaking at the White House in 2000 about “The Perils of Indifference”. He was explaining the world's indifference to Jews. The world’s disregard towards the SS troops. The speech states that “And that ship,
The Holocaust was a genocide that caused approximately six million deaths of European Jews, this happened while the whole world stayed indifferent to their situation. Indifference is the lack of concern, or sympathy towards someone, or something. Indifference played a role in the Holocaust including the Germans indifference to the suffering of the Jews, The world’s inference to the suffering of others, and the indifference of people towards death. First of all indifference is shown in the Holocaust when the Germans are indifferent to the suffering of the Jews. The author writes, “As we were passing through some of the villages many Germans watched us, showing no surprise.
Life in a concentration camp is unimaginably difficult and leaves many with great uncertainty. People must fight hard, have unspeakable grit, and go through life-changing events just to have a chance at the freedom they were unsure would ever come. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, we learn Elie was only 15 when he was taken from his home, left only with his father, and forced into multiple concentration camps throughout Hitler's reign. We’re let in on the unbearable experiences and effects concentration camps had on many of the innocent people forced to try to live life as normal there. Elie overcomes the tragedy and struggles brought on by the situation by changing the way he approaches and experiences life's battles.
Introduction: During the Holocaust, many people suffered from the despicable actions of others. These actions were influenced by hatred, intolerance, and anti-semitic views of people. The result of such actions were the deaths of millions during the Holocaust, a devastating genocide aimed to eliminate Jews. In this tragic event, people, both initiators and bystanders, played major roles that allowed the Holocaust to continue. Bystanders during this dreadful disaster did not stand up against the Nazis and their collaborators.
The severely cruel conditions of concentration camps had a profound impact on everyone who had the misfortune of experiencing them. For Elie Wiesel, the author of Night and a survivor of Auschwitz, one aspect of himself that was greatly impacted was his view of humanity. During his time before, during, and after the holocaust, Elie changed from being a boy with a relatively average outlook on mankind, to a shadow of a man with no faith in the goodness of society, before regaining confidence in humanity once again later in his life. For the first 13 years of his life, Elie seemed to have a normal outlook on humanity.
At Auschwitz, it changes Elie 's mind and has a dramatic effect on him. "How could they burn the children?" (Night, 56). The Germans murdered many innocent and defenseless Jews for no reason.
Elie was held captive in concentration camps from 1944-1945. During his time in the concentration camps, he became grateful for what he had, overcame countless obstacles, and more importantly kept fighting until he was free. [The Holocaust is very important to learn about because it can teach you some important life lessons.] You should always be grateful for what you have, no matter what the circumstances are. This lesson can be learned when Elie says, “After my father’s death, nothing could touch me any more”(109).