Night Essay, Research Paper

Night is a very good book. It is very descriptive of what times were like during World War 2. It shows the harsh treatment of the Jews. It makes you think about how many innocent people have died for absolutely no reason. Most of all, it makes you think of what hell the concentration camps must have been. I don’t know if I could have made it through concentration camps. They sound very harsh. World War 2 was a very dark time for Jews all over Europe. There are several settings in Night. The book starts out in Transylvania. This is where Elie Wiesel grows up with her family. Her father runs his own business there. She prays every day to God. Another setting in this book is the concentration camp at Auschwitz This was the most notorious of all concentration camps. Millions of Jews died there during World War 2. Elie and his family were sent here, but he and his father were later transferred. There were several other concentration camps listed in the book, such as Buna. The concentration camps weren’t as well known as Auschwitz, but still many people lost their lives there. There are many characters in this novel. I think that the most important characters would have to be Elie’s family. They are a big part of this book. Elie Wiesel is the main character in the book. He is an introspective teenager. Elie first begins to hate when Hungarian police strike out with billy clubs and force Jews from their homes. At Auschwitz’s block 17, he berates himself for being a spoiled child and rejecting his first plat of prison soup. He redeems himself by performing multiple acts of kindness. At the end of his incarceration, Elie bears little resemblance to what he was when he left Sighet. Mr. Wiesel was a grocer, adviser, and a religious leader in the village of Sighet. His dedication to others is obvious in his accompaniment of the first convoy of deportees to the ghetto. At the Birkenau ditch where infants are burned, he wishes the Elie had gone with his mother. Elie assumes that his father does not want to witness the murder of his only son. Mrs. Wiesel doesn’t play a very big part in this book. We know very little about her. She plays such a short part in the book. We know her at first when they are moving into the ghettos, but later when they are taken to the concentration camps, she gets separated from Elie and Mr. Wiesel, and we never see her again. I thought that the theme of the book was not to discriminate people. That is what the Germans did throughout the book. They discriminated and killed the Jews. Elie Wiesel was showing us the harsh treatment used upon the Jews because the Germans thought that they were a little different. He probably wrote this to make sure that something like this never happened again. He wanted to touch everyone that read this book. He wanted to send out a message that discrimination is wrong. I learned a lot of things from this book. I learned about concentration camps. I learned how people were burned in ovens, and killed in gas showers there. I learned how people had to work for their lives. I learned how people would be sometimes killed for the gold in their teeth. I learned that people were not given a lot to eat, but were still expected to work as hard as if they were in good health. I learned that people would get whipped and beat by the person in charge of them if they did something wrong. I learned that many families were separated from each other, never to see each other again, during this time period. I thought this was a very good book, I liked it a whole bunch. It gave me a really good idea of what it would be like to go through all of that stuff. It made me think of reasons why the Germans would do that to a certain type of people. It made me think of why the United States didn’t get involved in the war sooner, regardless of it the Jews being persecuted were from the United States or not. It made me feel sorry for all the families that got separated for this time. It made me wonder why the Germans could do this to people and not even hesitate while doing it. I thought that this book was a very good book because it made me think about all of these things that came to my mind. That is exactly what Elie Wiesel wanted to happen when he wrote this book. I would have to rate this book a 9. I think that it is definitely the best book we have read this year because it is definitely the most interesting book that we have read so far. I liked to learn about the history of World War 2, and this book gave me a very clear image of exactly what World War 2 and concentration camps were like. I think the part of the book that effected me the most was the part where Elie was whipped twenty-five times. This was such a cruel punishment for what he did. It made me realize that the heads of the concentration camps didn’t care whether you lived or you died, they only cared about getting their work done. They didn’t care how bad you were hurt. This part of the book made me really sympathetic towards Elie. The other part of the book that effected me was the part when Elie gave up his crowned tooth to spare his father’s beating. He didn’t want anything to happen to his father. This shows a strong relationship between father and son and it made me think to myself if I would do the same for my father or not. I really admired Elie Wiesel. He was a very strong boy. He was only 12 years old when all of this started happening to him. This is a very young age to start taking on such big things. Every some adults wouldn’t have been able to take on what pain and suffering he endured, but he stuck it out. He didn’t go crazy and get himself killed to get the pain over with. He stuck it out and lived every day until he was free. This takes a lot of courage and patience to do. This is not an easy task, especially when you know that you are never going to see half of your family again. He really touched me throughout his book. World War 2 was a very harsh time. Not many good things came from World War 2. Just think of how many lives were lost there. Isn’t is sad to think about? I can only say that Elie Wiesel did a very good job in portraying the cruelties of the war and concentration camps. All we need to do now is make sure something like that doesn’t happen again. You have to ask yourself, “If something like that does ever happen again, will I help out?”