Night by Elie Wiesel 2
Night is a powerful, brilliantly written autobiography of a concentration camp survivor. Wiesel saw his family, friends, and fellow Jews degraded and murdered. Wiesel also says that his God, to whom he was so devoted, was also "murdered" by the Nazis. In the novel, Wiesel changed from a devout Jew to a broken young man who doubted his belief in God. When Wiesel first comes to the concentration camp and sees all the walking skeletons, he can't believe that this is real. He feels that he might be dreaming. However, as Wiesel faces each day and witnesses the starvation, the beatings of innocent people, and the tortures, his faith in God begins to waiver. By the end of the book Wiesel has lost his belief in God. If there is a God, how could he allow this to happen, he wonders.As the days go by, there are frequent selections. A man with a little stick decides who will live and who will die. This man acts like God. To the right you live, to the left, you die. As Wiesel watches the evil that exists, his belief in the existence of God continues to deteriorate. Wiesel asks, "Where is my God? Where is He?"(61) Wiesel continues to witness hangings, beatings, starvation, and torture. One day when Wiesel comes back from a day's
work, he sees three gallows being assembled. The whole camp has to witness the hangings. Among the 3 people who would die that day, was a young child. Wiesel wondered what that poor innocent boy had done to deserve to die in this manner. Wiesel watched the boy struggling between life and death. The death was a slow agony. At this point Wiesel lost all faith in the existence of God. "Where is God now? Where is He? Here is - He is hanging here on this gallows..."(62) After this incident Wiesel could no longer believe in God. He felt that no one could believe in God when one saw innocent children die such terrible deaths. I feel that the Holocaust was a terrible event and that however we look at it we will just try to think of ways on how we could have prevented it. I think that because of Hitler it was inevitable, not because of Anti-Semitism by the Christians. Although many Christians did not try to intervene, mainly the Pope, Pius XII, we must remember that 5 million Christians were killed during the Holocaust too. We can only hope that Jews and Christians fully understand that both groups suffered a tragic blow and that we can only continue to live in peace in the future. I believe that the Holocaust tr
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Approximate Word count = 821
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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