Night Essay, Research Paper

Elie Wiesel’s Night is a true account of what the holocaust did, not only to the Jews, but to humanity as well. People all over the world were devastated by this horrendous act, and there are still people today who have not overcome its effects. An example of the horrible acts of the Nazis that stands out occurs at the end of World War II, when Elie and the rest of the inmates at the Buna camp were being force to transfer to the Gleiwitz camp. The transfer was a long, tiring journey through bitter cold and heavy falling snow. The people were often forced to run during parts of the journey, and if a person was tired or injured he or she are executed. One image of this journey that will forever be in Elie’s mind is when Rabbi Eliahou’s son left the rabbi for dead so he could survive.The rabbi and his son were running together, but Rabbi Eliahou became tired and had to slow down. As the rabbi slowed down his pace his son continued to run, and pretended not to see that his father was slowing down. This incident forced Elie to think about what he would do in the same situation. Elie decided that no matter how weak his father became he would always be there for him, even if he would die for it.Throughout the novel Elie Wiesel shows the reader how the Nazis broke the spirits of the Jews. This caused Elie to lose his faith in God, as his time in the Nazi camps grew longer. The reader can see this in Elie’s father ’s confrontation with the gypsy. His father asked a gypsy where the lavatories were, but the gypsy did not even respond to Elie’s father. Then the gypsy struck his father in the head, and knocked him down onto the floor. Elie watched the situation and realized that he was going to physically and mentally punished during his time at the camp, and his faith in God could not stop it from happening. Elie did nothing to the gypsy that struck his father although the thought did cross his mind. He decided that if he were to fight back at the gypsy the result would be physical harm to him.The incident that probably had the greatest effect on Elie and the other inmates was the hanging of the pipel. The pipel was a young boy with an “innocent face” who is sentenced to death by the Nazis for being involved in a conspiracy to hide information that cause a German build to be destroyed. The hang was held in the middle of the camp and the Lagerkapo could not kick the chair out from the pipel’s feet, so the SS officers had to do it for him. Although the two other people who are hanged with the young boy have their necks broken the boy’s neck does not break and hang there for thirty minutes before he dies. The boy’s suffering is one image that can describe the suffering the Jews went through during the Holocaust. Both the boy and the Jews fought for their lives but in the end the result was death.When the war was over and the camps were freed Elie looked in the mirror and saw a “corpses”. Elie felt he had no soul left. He felt that he was just a body and the Nazis had ripped his soul out of him. People all over the world felt like Elie felt. People that were not directly involved with the Holocaust were emotionally drained by the event. By the end of the war Elie had no faith left in God or his people.