Night: Causes of the Holocaust Essay

Night: Causes of the Holocaust The Holocaust was arguably the most brutal part of the Second World War, but could it have been avoided? Those who have survived the Holocaust would say today that it could have been avoided. The book Night by Elie Wiesel provides readers with the idea that if the Jews had taken a stand against the Nazi’s, then it could have been avoided. The book tells the story of a young boy, Eliezer, who lost his family during the Holocaust and who survived it himself. His family is one of many Jewish families that are taken into German control in 1944. The book is a narration of all of his experiences from the train rides to the different concentration camps that they visited, to all of the different people he encountered on this journey. One main struggle for the Jews was to maintain their humanity even with all of the harsh conditions they endured. But if the Jews had pulled together, many lives could have been saved. In 1939, World War II began and the line was drawn between the Allies and the Axis. With over 100 million people serving in the military and resulting in 73 million deaths including the Jews killed during the Holocaust. World War II was the most widespread war of all time. Of the 9 million Jews living in Europe at this time, about 6 million were killed. The Germans created concentration camps for the Jews where they were either killed or put to work in harsh conditions. But before this journey they would be put in overcrowded ghettos before being transported to the extermination camps, but most did not even survive the journey, and most that did were put in gas chambers and killed. In the book Eliezer explains that in 1944 after the fall of the Hungarian government the Jews are captured. He explains that many Jews believed that the German forces would only be able to take the capitol city and did not think that they would not have to make an evacuation. Here the reader begins to catch an idea of how blind the Jews really were. Eliezer even asked his father to move the family to Palestine but the father says that he doesn’t want to leave their home behind and soon the Germans moved into Sighet, the town where Eliezer lives. They had a chance to leave but stayed because of their own belief that the Germans would not reach them even when Moshe the Beadle warns them of what is coming to them and he knows because he escaped from them. They were almost in denial of the stuff that Hitler was doing. The narrator even goes on to say that when his family is in the ghetto they are offered a place to hide but they refuse, and soon they are put into cattle cars and are forced to travel to Auschwitz. At the end of the first section Eliezer says that the Jews still believe that they are in God’s hands, and that they will be saved from the Nazi’s. Many of the Jews that were put in cattle cars to be taken to the concentration camps died from the bad conditions. In the book, Eliezer tells the reader about how the Jews begin to lose their humanity. He says that they begin to flirt openly like nobody else was there, and they are told that if anyone of them try to escape they will be shot. Soon an old lady can’t take it anymore and she begins to scream things, scaring the Jews. Then she is gagged but when she finds a way to scream again she is beaten and people think she is crazy. This is another example of the Jews trying not to believe what she is saying and they ignore it and call her crazy. Finally they get to Auschwitz and after a while they smell burning flesh which shows them that the old lady was right. When the Jews were put in the concentration camps during this time, they were put through a selection and this is where the Germans tried to get rid of the weaker Jews and killed them. The other Jews would be put to work in bad conditions and when they got weak, they were killed as well. This was also where many Jews were separated from their families but some lucky Jews got to stay with their

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