Sunday, May 1, 2011

Hope in "Night" by Elie Wiesel Essay

Essay on "Night" by Elie Wiesel

"Night" is a powerfully written story of a concentration camp survivor. Elie Wiesel deals with his loss of faith during the holocaust, and mentions the horrors of the concentration camps. He shows how such a life affected the people in the camps, how it changed many of them into something less than human. This paper will address some of the important scenes in Night.

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Moshe the Beadle is a poor Jew from Sighet who teaches Jewish religion to Elie. Moshe is deported before the rest of the Jews in Sighet, and escapes to tell the Jews in Sighet what the Nazis are doing to the Jews. Unfortunately, people think that he's crazy. Later on in the story the Nazis who capture Sighet are deporting Elie and his family and several other people. One of them that's important is Madame Schachter because of her foreshadowing of the flames.

Madame Schachter is a middle aged Jewish woman from Sighet who is deported with her ten-year-old son in the same train as Elie. On the third night, she begins to scream that she sees a fire in the darkness outside the train. Although others can see no fire, she scares the Jews in the train. Finally, she is tied up and gagged, so she can't scream because every time she screams, she puts the Jews life in danger. Her child, sitting next to her, watches and cries. When they are close to the first camp (Auschwitz) Madame Schachter begins her screaming again, but this time she is right. The people in the train realize the smell of burning human bodies.

When they arrive at Auschwitz, the Germens separate the male Jews from the female. Elie and his father are together, separated from Elie's mother and younger sister, whom he never sees again. Elie and his father lie about their ages to the SS officer so they would not go to the crematory. At that time Elie was 15 but he said that he's 18. His father said he's 40.

The dentist calls for Elie to have his gold crown pulled. Elie refuses to have his gold crown removed. He delays having the crown removed so he lies to the dentist that he's sick. Later on the dentist leaves the camp without taking Elie's gold crown.

Elie gets angry of his father because Idek had beaten his father, and he can't defend himself. When Idek notice Elie's gold crown, he demands it, but Elie refuse to give him the crown. Idek starts to beat his father badly, so Elie doesn't have any choice. He gives up his gold crown.

Elie deals with all the tragic and horrifying scenes in the camps and takes care of his father in Buna, a work camp. Elie is put to work in an electrical-fittings factory. For months in Buna, Elie works in that freezing weather with no warm clothes and his injured foot. The Germans decide to leave the camp because the Russians are coming. By order of the Germans, the prisoners begin a death march. They are forced to run for more than 50 miles to the Gleiwitz concentration camp. Many people die because of the weather, the weakness, and the hunger.

The Jews are guided into the cattle cars and the Germans order the prisoners to throw out the bodies of the dead people. The train travels for ten days, with no food. As they pass through German towns, some of the German people throw bread into the cars, so they can enjoy watching the Jews kill each other over a piece of bread. An old man grabs a piece, but Elie watches as he is attacked and beaten to death by his own son. Every body is so hungry that they would do any thing for a piece of bread. Elie meets one of his old friends in the train whose name is Juliek. Juliek is a young Jewish who was Elie's friend. Elie hears him playing the violin in the train when the prisoners are dying. Elie falls a sleep to the music, and when he wakes up he finds Juliek dead, his violin smashed.

When Elie and his father finally arrive at the Buchenwald concentration camp, Elie's father is so ill because he hasn't had anything to eat for days. That made him week and the reason why he can't walk. Elie's father is asking only to be allowed to rest. After he closes his eye's he dies. Elie survives in Buchenwald, until April 11, 1945 when the American army liberates the camp.

To sum up this tragic story we discovered that in Elie Wiesel's journey Elie dealt with a lot of horrifying things such as in the time that Jews were no longer counted as humans, they were treated worse than animals. That kind of behavior change a human to some thing that no one can imagine. That kind of behavior is not tolerated today.

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