Night Reflection

The novel “Night” was written by Elie Wiesel and is a memoir of his life during World War II. The book starts with his life living in Hungary with his family. It then tells of how they were taken away to concentration camps throughout the war. During Elie’s stays at the various camps you see the sacrifices he makes and how the experience changes him.

During the Holocaust, Eliezer Wiesel changes from a spiritual, sensitive, little boy to a spiritually dead, dispassionate man. In his memoir, Night, Elie speaks about his experiences upon being a survivor of the Holocaust. The reader sees how Elie has changed through his experiences in Sighet and the ghettos in comparison to what it was like for him in the concentration camps.

People can change very much in bad situations like the people in the Holocaust, more specifically, Elie Wiesel, a 15 year old who got sent to a concentration camp in Auschwitz. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, changed in many ways throughout the book because of the different experiences and sights he had to go through in Auschwitz.

| This passage, I think, describes how much a person can change once he or she has been exposed to the many horrors present in the Jewish concentration camps. These people in these camps might have easily become mentally unstable, because they would witness murder and beatings every day; the suffering of countless people. The people themselves also had to endure unknown numbers of days in cattle cars and barracks, which could also have been traumatic. Seeing and experiencing all of these things can change a person, and the way they think. No longer is Elie the innocent child who wanted to study religion in his hometown, but now has to deal with the living hell of his mind, which has ultimately changed him.

The train arrived to Auschwitz. In the middle of the night. ¨Men to the left! Women to the right” (Wiesel 29)! The SS officers shouted as they forced the Jews off the train. At this time Elie lost his mother and his three sisters. Little did they know that they were going into the gas chamber to die. The women and old people were not useful in the camps. The concentration camp was about 25 square miles. An inmate spotted Elie and told him that his age was eighteen not fifteen. He also told his dad that he was not fifty but that he was forty. The SS shouted for them to move. They ended up in the barracks. The inmates that awaited them in there ordered the new Jews to ¨Strip! Hurry up! Raus! Hold on only to your belt and your shoes¨ (35). They then were ordered to run to the barber. There they got all of their hair buzzed off. They then were soaked in disinfectant

Throughout a lifetime, people undergo many different identities to discover their true self. Elie Wiesel, the author of the memoir Night, suffered a major event that changed his identity forever. In his experience at the concentration camps during the Holocaust, Elie had to fight to stay alive even during the most resilient moments. This event shaped his life and brought Elie to endure different perspectives in his time in the camps. Eliezer’s identity changed throughout the memoir from faithful, to fearful, to hopeless.

Furthermore, while still in Auschwitz and after he was liberated, Elie started to reveal the side of him that acclaimed many negative character traits. First of all, toward the end of the book, Elie was nonchalant and numb toward all the terrible things that happened at Auschwitz, “Very close to us stood the tall chimney of the crematorium’s furnace. It no longer impressed us. It barely drew our attention” (Wiesel 104). After moving to a new camp, Elie was unphased by seeing the new crematoriums. Now that Elie and his father were transported to the new camp, they are unfazed by everything that they see. The things they witness would shock most people, but Elie and his father are used to it. This proves that Elie changed after experiencing Auschwitz, he went from being shocked every time he saw something new at the camp, to barely even noticing those things. In addition, Elie also becomes very disinterested and apathetic after he arrived to Auschwitz, “Suddenly the evidence overwhelmed me: there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight” (Wiesel 99). Based on the evidence he had, Elie believed his father was dead. Throughout the whole book, Elie has been staying with his father and keeping them

There are many important themes and overtones to the book Night, by Eliezer Wiesel. One of the major themes from the book includes the protagonist, and author of his memoire, Elie Wiesel’s ever changing relationship with God. An example of this is when Moche the Beadle asked Elie an important question that would change his life forever, as the basis of his passion and aptitude for studying the ancient texts and teachings of Judaism, “When Moche the Beadle asked Elie why he prayed, Elie couldn 't think of an answer that truly described his faith, and thought, "a strange question, why did I live, why did I breathe?" (Wiesel 14).

The novel Night by Eliezer Wiesel tells the tale of a young Elie Wiesel and his experience in the concentration camps,and his fight to stay alive . The tragic story shows the jewish people during the Holocaust and their alienation from the world. Elie’s experience changes him mentally, and all actions in taken while in the concentration were based on one thing...Survival.

In life, people go through different changes when put through difficult experiences. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel is a young Jewish boy whose family is sent to a concentration camp by Nazis. The story focuses on his experiences and trials through the camp. Elie physically becomes more dehumanized and skeletal, mentally changes his perspective on religion, and socially becomes more selfish and detached, causing him to lose many parts of his character and adding to the overall theme of loss in Night.

At the beginning of Night, Elie has a good and well-off life. He is not poor and lives comfortably with his family in Sighet, Transylvania. He may not have everything he wants, but he has what he needs. This changes overnight when Elie and the other Jews of Sighet are deported out of their ghetto and into concentration camps. The Nazis take everything from Elie, his family, name, hair, personal possessions, and confidence in his faith. Suddenly, Elie finds he is no longer the son of a well-respected Jewish community leader who has everything he needs, but rather a prisoner with no possessions or home to call his own. In minutes, he has lost everything and now finds himself in a camp where he owns just a bowl, shoes, and the clothes on his back. He doesn’t even have his own bed; that too he must share with others. “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust” (Wiesel, 32). At this point, Elie has realized that the life he knew before was gone. He also probably wished he had appreciated something as simple as his name, as once he was in the camp, “I became A-7713. After that I had no other name” (Wiesel, 39). He even wished he had appreciated his sheets before the war, saying “They put me into a bed with white sheets. I had forgotten that people slept in sheets” (Wiesel, 74). All of Elie’s realizations of how good his life had been while in Sighet didn’t come until he had lost all the things he took for granted. Prior to his deportation, Elie was just like any other teenager. While he may know that he has a good life and has everything he needs, he usually doesn’t acknowledge or appreciate it. Most teenagers and adults alike take for granted their ability to provide for their needs. They don’t think about the event that

When Elie arrived at the first concentration camp, he was a child, but when left he was no longer human. Elie’s character changed through his encounter of the Holocaust. Elie idolized his religion, Judaism, one relevant identification for him. Elie spent hours praying and learning about Judaism, but it was the reason he and his family were tormented for. Elie was so intrigued by Judaism, that he wanted someone a “master” to guide in his studies of Kabbalah, an ancient spiritual wisdom that teaches how to improve the lives (Wiesel 8). Furthermore, he loses hope in God and in life. Elie only had a few items when he arrived in the camp, one being his family, but that would soon be taken from him. When Elie and his family arrived at the camp in Auschwitz, he was kept by his father. He always gazed after his father, caring for him until his death.

Have you ever changed or have the people around you changed out of survival? People who survived the holocaust changed because of what they went through so they could survive. Just like Elie he survived Auschwitz and he will never be the same person he was before the concentration camps. In “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie developed into a new person through his experiences at Auschwitz Concentration Camp and survived.

This being the case, Elie had been taking care of himself. Elie’s life before Auschwitz was average, yet also very taken for granted.

Elie believed so strongly in his religion. By taking time out of his day, Elie showed incredible discipline and focus because it takes time to learn about something new. While not perfect, Elie had some good things about him, but he would soon change because of his experiences in the concentration camps.