Examples Of Inhumanity In Night By Elie Wiesel

Several SS men rushed to find me, creating such confusion that a number of people were some my father and I. Still, there were some gunshots and some dead” (Wiesel 96). Because Elie ran after his father, some people were shot and dead, that could have been him, but Elie did not care. As long as he stayed with his father, he was okay. Even though his father was getting weak, Elie never left his side, even if it meant putting his own life in danger. Most people in the camp did abandon their fathers, however, and would even beat their own fathers to death for a few crumbs. Elie was the different one in this case, he was one of the only people that did not abandon his father and did not just think of himself the whole time. His father and him relied on each other in the camp and because of that they were both able to be so resilient depsite the terrible conditions thy faced. Without his father by his side, Elie did not feel alive. For example, after Elie’s father

In the novel, Night, Elie Wiesel is a dynamic character shown through the conflict, character versus nature, where he went from being defeated to defiant in the personified death in the concentration camps. Through his journey in the concentration camps and struggle for survival, Wiesel encounters death several times, he either witnesses death’s ways or outlives them. While being in Auschwitz, one of the largest concentration camps from the Holocaust during World War Two, Wiesel had grown numb to the effects of death, he had outgrown the disbelief of how cruel the world could be, of how God could remain silent in such a time of need and help, “Death enveloped me, it suffocated me. It stuck to me like glue. I felt I could touch it. The idea

Elie, his father, and the prisoners had to run in the snow more than 40 miles to another concentration camp, deeper in Germany. When they stopped a man, Rabbi Eliahou, asked if Elie and his father if they had seen his son. Elie had and he realized that the Rabbi’s son had “wanted to get rid of his father…to free himself from an encumbrance” (Wiesel 87). They then got on cattle trains that took them to the next concentration camp, Buchenwald. They passed by villages and when people threw bread in, the prisoners began to fight to the death for it. One son began to attack his own father for a piece and killed him, only to be killed the next moment himself. Soon after they arrived in Buchenwald, Eliezer’s father was very weak and sick. A part of Elie felt that if he could get rid of his father he “could use all [his] strength to struggle for [his] own survival” (Wiesel 101). He was very ashamed, even more so when his father died and he felt “free at last” (Wiesel 105).

Throughout the novel, we can understand that in the beginning, the relationship between Elie and his father was not the best because Elie believed his father cared more about the Jewish community than him. However, by the time the father and the son only had each other, they were depending on each other. Elie was only living for his father because he knew his father would not survive without him. They were both helping each other in a ways surviving. For example, Elie gave his father lessons in marching step, to help him survive (55). Also, Elie became less and less emphatic toward his dad during the concentration camp days. The Nazi sabotages the wonderful bond a father and a son had together. Elie could see his own father get beaten up and even than; he had no emotion or anger (39). Once his father got beat up with an iron bar, and Elie did nothing to help him, he just stood there (54). Even thought he had no emotion, even when his father past away, Elie said “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. 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!...

As demonstrated in the text, “I no longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip… Only the first really hurt… I was over… I had not realized it, but I had fainted… He (father) would be suffering more than I” (page 57 and 58). Elie was so calm about being whipped and beaten. He had clearly lost all hope for a pleasant ending. Elie didn’t care about being whipped, yet he cared about his father’s pain. He knew his father would be in pain to see his son beaten, but he claimed that his father suffered more than himself. It shows that he wasn’t in as much pain as his father, who hadn’t even been beaten. Elie didn’t care that he was being beaten. His father cared more than him. An example of Elie giving up on humanity occurs when he says, “He reached the first cauldron… Jealousy devoured us… Poor hero committing suicide for a ration or two or more of soup… In our minds, he was already dead… We jumped at the sound of a shot… Falling to the ground, his face stained by the soup...” (page 59 and 60). The man that snuck soup in the cauldron was a lost cause, and Elie knew it. He knew that there was no way he would survive even if he had gotten in. The greedy people would’ve lunged at him and eaten his extra food. Nobody felt sorry for the guy when he was shot. They weren’t even concerned. Death was a normal thing to them. The Jews lacked the emotion of sympathy. As stated in the text, “Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to… dying men” (page 95). This shows that Elie was still affected by what happened even after the holocaust. His comrade, Juliek, playing the violin surrounded by death affected Elie. Juliek played the song just before his death. The song was a reminder of that day. It brought memories of the holocaust back. It reminded Elie of the hard times and all of

“I figure, sometimes, bad things happen to us so we can achieve a higher purpose and attain greater happiness and fulfillment in life” - Omoakhuana Anthonia. Sometimes, bad things have to happen to people for them to realize their true potential and purpose in life. This proves true for the survivors of the holocaust, they now have the power to stop things like this from happening ever again. For Elie Wiesel, this is especially true, after he survived he went on to write the book “Night”, this book has really helped people to understand what truly happened and to gain respect for the survivors; he also went on to win a number of awards, including the nobel peace prize. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, our main character, Elie,

Elie Wiesel portrays how the Holocaust emotionally impacted him throughout his entire memoir, Night. A significant emotional challenge for him was determining a way to keep his father and him alive, especially as times got more difficult as the story continued. Elie saw many boys abandoning their fathers. For instance, Zalman was running alongside Elie in transport, while aware he was ahead of his father. Elie assumed that Zalman thought his father was a gratuitous obstacle for survival. Or when Meir-intentional or not- killed his father for bread. He was determined not to echo their methods. Though, as time went on, that goal got harder to achieve. Men would tell him that his father's death was inevitable, he should be saving himself, and he “could have two rations of bread, two rations of soup” (Wiesel 111; ch.8). He considered this “only [for] a fraction of a second, but it

Elie being scared of being beat, looks away when his father is being beat by the Kapo. He “felt anger at the moment, it [is] not directed at the Kapo but at [his] father”(54). He is angry, not at the one who is causing damage to his father, but at his father. He is angry at his father for not avoiding the Kapo’s wrath. Elie no longer feels honorable or has the dignity he once had. He has lost respect for himself making him feel useless. He feels that he can not do anything about his father being beat because he will just be ignored. He will be beat himself, and for the sake of survival, he can not risk his health. He has no more respect for himself, therefore he has no respect for others. This is all due to the loss of self-respect; the loss of self-respect has major toll on people's

When Elie and his father first entered the camps, his father was struck and Elie did nothing to help his father: "What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails in this criminal's flesh" (39). This shows that, although Elie did not share a close relationship with his father, he still feels that he should stand up for his fahter for the fact that they are father and son. Elie is very violent in that he would have "dug his nails in the criminals' flesh." Evidently, Elie is furious towards the offender. Unfortunately, Elie does not do anything when his father is struck because he does not want to draw attention to himself. Nevertheless, the bond between Elie and his father does strengthen: "And what if he were dead, as well? He was not moving. Suddenly the evidence overwhelmed me: there is no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight" (98-99). Elie reveals that he truly depends on his father for survival. Because he believes his father is no longer alive, he loses all hope for surviavl. Although Elie expresses anger towards his father from time to time because he is being a burden, he still feels that his survival is meaningless without his father. The strong bond that the two developed once they entered the concentration camps proves that nothing can come between them so easily.

Then, throughout the middle of the novel, the strength of family bonds of the Jews is tested. After the run, a Rabbi asks Elie if he had seen his son, Elie tells him that he had not. Then Elie realizes that he had seen his son on the run, but he does not tell the Rabbi because his son left him behind on purpose. The text states, “He had felt his father growing weaker… by this separation to free himself of a burden that could diminish his own chance for survival” (Wiesel 91). This is where the reader begins to see the toll that the concentration camps are having on the families. Elie includes this to show, that now, family members see each other as burdens rather than a blessing. Later in the novel, family members go as far as taking a life. One old man

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering” (Nietzsche). This quote, said by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, describes the desire to survive that was inside of Elie Wiesel in his story. The book describes Elie’s late teen years when he was sent to a concentration camp by the German government. In the book, he is separated from his whole family except for his old father, and both are put to work inside of the camp. As Elie suffers through the camp, his faith and his life face many tests and trials. There are many instances throughout the book when people die or when somebody loses their faith. The theme of the book Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is survival, as shown by the death of many Jews during the Holocaust, people willing to do anything to survive, and people’s faith not surviving the traumatic experiences of the concentration camps.

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.

Page 34, “…Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” From this one quote you can most certainly tell that Elie has been living through some extremely tough times in his life right now. You can also tell that just being a part of the concentration camp and knowing that if you don’t die there is a good chance that one of your family members or friends will, it will always be permanently engraved in Elies’ memories. And this has definitely had a huge impact on his life “He was not alone in having lost faith during those days of selection,” Page 76. Elie is talking about the Rabbi losing his faith when he states that the Rabbi is not alone and Elie himself is also losing faith. The selection was when the Germans and doctors looked at how the prisoner’s were health wise and if they where unhealthy they would kill them and put them in the crematoria’s. This, however, was tough for many of the prisoners because most of them where starving and unhealthy, a lot of the people didn’t pass the selections, but those who did

Elie’s father loses his strength quickly, “his eyes [grew] dim” (46) almost immediately after arriving. The horrors which he had seen were easily enough to crush the spirit of a former community leader. His disbelief of the horrors he saw questioned the very basis of his soul, and he began to despair. His father’s eyes soon become, “veiled with despair” (81), as he loses hope for survival. The despair of camp life shrouds the human within, showing only another cowed prisoner. Elie’s father no longer can see hope, having his vision clouded by cruelty and hate. Elie’s father is eventually overwhelmed by despair; he, “would not get up. He knew that it was useless” (113). The Nazis crushed his soul, killed his family, stole his home, and eventually took his life; this treatment destroyed the person inside the body. He could no longer summon the strength to stay alive, so he gave up, and collapsed.

When going through a rough period of time, people may lose hope in their faith or religion. To start with, when the summer was wrapping up, Elie sees people praying and states, “Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because he caused