Character Analysis: Elie's Steps Through His Change

The Holocaust was a very terrible time in history over six million Jews perished in concentration camps. Even though in every tragedy there are survivors. Elie Wiesel was a little boy when all of this happened. He experienced all of the terrible things that happened during this time frame. While suffering in the terrible condition of the camp Elie and his father’s relationship goes through a drastic change.

The concentration camp made Elie have to readjust to all of the transformations for his own survival. His first priority was for him to make it through the selection. He wanted his father to be with him, but at the same time he didn’t because he didn’t want to see his dad suffer or his dad to see him suffer. When His dad died and he said Elie’s name as his last word, Elie did not go to find him. He knew there was nothing he could do so he payed no attention to him. He thought it was a refreshment that he did not have to endure the pain of witnessing his father

Jews at these camps were assigned numbers as their names. Also, Elie and his father were separated from the rest of the family. Later they were put in their barracks and it was brutal, conditions were horrible. They were forced to wake up early and work in bad conditions. Many were barely fed and some starved to death.

As the holocaust went on he started to get skinnier than he was before; “ I was a body. Perhaps even less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time” (Wiesel 50). Elie also had pus in his foot after walking bare feet to his concentration camp in the snow. This shows how the nazi’s did not care about anything that happened to their prisoners.

The Nazi army dehumanized the Jewish people by depriving them of love. Elie, along with most of the other people in the camps, aren’t really accepted socially by anyone. They weren’t accepted as a person, and no one even knew them by their names; furthermore, they were known by the number they had tattooed on their arms. On page 42, Elie says “I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.” By having their names taken away, the Jewish people had their social acceptance stripped from them. Also, their families were taken away from them, and they had to do whatever they could to stay with them. As Elie said on page 30, “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone.” By separating the Jews from their families, they lost the love from them. By depriving the jews of social acceptance and their families, they hardly felt any

The Holocaust was a deadly event that killed millions of Jews in Germany. Nazis would starve, hit, and most times kill them in result of hate against their religion. Elie Wiesel, one of the most famous Holocaust survivors, was just 15 when he began to witness these happening to his friends and family. When Elie became free, he won the Nobel Peace Prize and became an author. He wrote a book about his traumatic experiences while he was in the camps that tortured and abolished Jews. He left his fenced neighborhood called the Ghettos for Auschwitz where he was tortured and put to work. He marched through cold snow and shivered through long nights, trying to stay with his father. After experiencing the trauma of the Holocaust, Elie changed the relationship he had of God and his father.

Throughout the story elie changes camps. The paragraphs talk about how elie changed in camps many different ways and how he had to march in the death marches many people died but he was lucky to not die. Elie was scared after the holocaust he could never forget those days that he was there. . Elie changed camps which changed him in many ways such as physically, emotionally and spiritually.

In the beginning he was horrified of the things he saw. On his first day at a concentration camp Elie saw babies being thrown into large pits of fire, people being taken to the crematory and Jews being hit and beaten for no reason. As time past and Wiesel was moved from camp to camp he started to only care about his survival and the horrible things done by the Nazi’s became apart of his everyday life.He saw a boy whose face he said looked like the face of an angel being hung. The little boy struggled to breathe for over thirty minutes before the life in his eyes faded away. Wiesel's own father was beaten because he was sick and not given the proper medical care from the nazi’s. Days later his father was taken to the crematory. Instead of Wiesel being sad he was relieved that he no longer had to take care of his father. Elie lost friends family and saw many more being killed. Wiesel was almost numb to the things happening around him.

Before Elie’s experience in the Auschwitz concentration camp, he had many character traits such as being unwise, innocent, and impatient. When Elie first arrives at Auschwitz and receives his first meal, his father warns him to ration his food. For example, “I was terribly hungry and swallowed my ration on the spot” (Wiesel 44). During Elie’s first meal in Auschwitz, he gobbles it down and does not think about what might happen later. When his father starts to give him some advice, he is already finished with his meal. Elie acts unwisely and does not think ahead to what might happen in the later days. Earlier in the story, Elie and his family are waiting their turn to be put onto a train that will be sent to a concentration camp. Before they enter the train Elie asks, “ ‘When will it be our turn, father?’ I asked my father” (Wiesel 18). This quote shows that Elie really has no idea what is happening and what will happen to him. Elie has no idea that “his turn” will end up with him in a concentration camp. He is innocent and does not think about what bad might happen to him. Upon entering Auschwitz, Elie sees people being thrown into the fire and decides to die a quick death rather than suffer. Wiesel states, “ ‘If that is true, then I don’t want to wait. I’ll run into the electrified wire. . .’” (33). Elie is afraid of what is to come upon him arriving in the concentration camp. Because of this fear, his thoughts become driven by fear and cause him to think impulsive thoughts. Elie would rather die in the fence, than be worked or starved to death. Elie acts very unwisely in his reactions to seeing people killed. To sum up, before Elie changed as a person, he had traits such as being impatient, unwise, and innocent.

In 1942 Nazi soldiers arrived at Elie's hometown, Sighet. Elie and his family did not know the pain and suffering they where about to feel for the rest of their lives. Soon after they realized that they where going to be used to work for the Nazi's. They got transported to a concentration camp where they saw young children being thrown into a fire. The Nazis practically starved the Jews only giving them soup and a small ration of bread. They treated the Jews like garbage, and they showed no gratitude for their work. The Nazis also experimented on the Jews to attempt to create a near perfect and superior race of man. They crammed hundreds of

Elie’s Attitude changed a lot within the first few days after being put into the ghetto. He started getting more, and more sorrowful, realizing that his life may never be the same. When he first got put into one of those cargo box trains, Elie started to go little insane. Seeing all these other people trampling over one another being forced into a small area of space with not much room for the amount of people. He started becoming more and more quiet, only standing up for others and not himself. Elie was very selfless, and brave throughout all of the story. He would take others pain over them having to deal with it, which made him a hero.

During his time in the concentration camps, Elie’s outlook on life shifted to a very pessimistic attitude, showing emotions and actions including rebellion, forgetfulness of humane treatment, and selfishness. Elie shows rebellion early in the Holocaust at the Solemn Service, a jewish ceremony, by thinking, “Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled” (Wiesel 67). Elie had already shifted his view on his religion and faith in God. After witnessing some of the traumas of the concentration camps, Elie questioned what he did to deserve such treatment. Therefore, he began to rebel against what he had grown up learning and believing. Not only had Elie’s beliefs changed, his lifestyle changed as well. When Elie’s foot swelled, he was sent to the doctor, where they put him “...in a bed with white sheets. I [he] had forgotten that people slept in sheets” (Wiesel 78). Many of the luxuries that Elie may have taken for granted have been stripped of their lives, leaving Elie and the other victims on a thin line between survival and death. By explaining that he forgot about many of these common luxuries, Elie emphasizes the inhumane treatment the victims of the Holocaust were put through on a daily basis.

Elie experienced many changes, as a person while he was in Auschwitz. Before Elie was sent to Auschwitz, he was just a small naive child that new very little

At the young age of 15, Elie was forcibly moved into a ghetto and soon after taken to a concentration camp. Human minds do not fully develop until a person reaches about 25 years of age. (Sandra Aamodt, Brain Maturity Extends Well Beyond Teen Years, National Public Radio) Comprehending the Holocaust is impossible for anyone, which makes it that much more unimaginable and unbelievable to a child. It is quite simple for one to lose sight of himself when faced with a scene of pure death. It is fair to say that most people will do anything in return to live a while longer with loved ones. Therefore, morals are thrown out the window and traded

In the book, our narrator, Elie, is constantly going through changes, and almost all of them are due to his time spent in Auschwitz. Prior to the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie was a very different boy, he had a more optimistic outlook on life. During the first few pages of the book, Elie tells us a bit about how he viewed the world before deportation, “ I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.” ( 3). Elie was, as he says himself, deeply observant and devoted most of his time to his faith. He spent almost all of his time studying and worshiping. At this point, Elie’s faith is the center of his life. Elie is also shown to do a few other things and has a few more early character traits aside from being dedicated to what he believes in. Elie also sees the best of people, a few pages later he says, “The news is terrible,’ he said at last. And then one word: ‘transports’ The ghetto was to be liquidated entirely… ‘Where will they take us?” (Wiesel 14). This is one of the only time we hear about Elie being worried or scared because of the Germans before Auschwitz, and still, despite the warnings that were given and the rumors circulating, Elie doesn’t think that the Germans are actually going to do all of those terrible things. Around this time in the book, Wiesel starts to become more emotionally weighted, but none of what has happened takes full effect until much later. There are multiple instances in the book where Elie is given reason to distrust or even hate the Germans, he talks about how the Gestapo treated him and his family on page 19 “‘Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!’ the Hungarian police were screaming.”. Yet he then goes on to say, on that very same page, that “Still our first