Night by Elie Wiesel

      In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, the author describes his experiences during the Holocaust. He was was born in Sighet, Transylvania, and was taken into concentration camps when he was about 14, almost 15. He spent about a year in five different concentration camps: Birkenau, Auschwitz, Buna, Gliewitz, and Buchenwald. In those camps, he was changed forever. 

      One of the biggest changes that he went through in the camps, was losing his faith. In the beginning of the memoir, we learn that Eliezer is very pious. Religion is very important to him. On page 4, it says, "Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I 
breathe?" This shows that his religion is a part of him. It comes as naturally to him as breathing. However, when he is forced into the concentration camp and sees all of these horrible things happening, he begins to wonder why God isn't doing anything. On page 33, he says, "For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. 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? " He was saying that he did not want to pray with the rest of the Jews. He was angry at God for not doing anything to stop the Holocaust. In fact, he was angry at the world for not doing anything about it because he also says, "Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent? No. All this could not be real. A night- mare perhaps..." He is almost refusing to believe that what he is seeing is real becuase, how could something so horrible be happening and no one around him is doing anything to stop it?

Another example of when we see his faith being destroyed is when he says, "Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever....Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes." He is saying that all of the things that he saw in that camp, pretty much destroyed his morals and religious beliefs. Before the concentration camps,  his religion was a part of him. The Holocaust destroyed a part of him. 

Another big change we see in Elie throughout the concentration camps is with his father. When he first gets to the concentration camps, Elie and his father rely on each other. In fact, Elie considers his father to be the only reason to live. On page, 86, Elie says, "My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support." This is saying that Elie doesn't think that his father would survive in the camp without him. So, even though it would be easier to stop and be killed, he keeps on running for his father. Another example of him helping his father is when Elie teaches his father how to march in step. On page, 55, it says, "My father had never served in the military and could not march in step. But here, whenever we moved from one place to another, it was in step. That presented Franek with the oppor- tunity to torment him and, on a daily basis, to thrash him savagely. ... I decided to give my father lessons in marching in step, in keeping time. We began practicing in front of our block. I would command: 'Left, right!' and my father would try." This shows that he truely cares about his father because he is taking time out of his day to teach him. He doesn't want his father to get hurt. Even though the other inmates make fun of them, and even though his father doesn't learn it very fast, Elie continues to teach him. 

Towards the end of the book, Elie's feelings about his father begin to change a little bit. He begins to wonder if he would be better off without his father. Especially because some of the inmates keep telling him this: "'Listen to me, kid. Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore.'" (P. 110) Elie begins to wonder if that was true. On page 111, he says, "I listened to him without interrupting. 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..." He is starting to think that he would be better off without his father because, if his father wasn't' there, he wouldn't have to give away his ration of bread and soup. He wouldn't be threatened because his father wouldn't stop calling Elie's name to go get him water.  When Elie's father dies, Elie does not cry. Instead, on page 112, he says, "But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!..." He says that he feels free without his father, letting the reader know that he has changed forever.  

Works Cited:

Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Marion Wiesel. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. 
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