Themes Of Night By Elie Wiesel

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Night is a book by and about Elie Wiesel, and his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust. He and his family were imprisoned in Auschwitz, the worst of multiple concentration camps, or “death camps”, that Germany built during World War II to carry out its attempted genocide of the Jewish race. The conditions in these camps were deplorable. Those who were not healthy or strong enough were killed immediately and those that did make it through “selection” had to work and were beaten and starved until they literally worked to death. Night is a very emotional book and contains many themes. I am going to review themes such as faith, brutality, and loss and how they change and develop throughout the book. Perhaps one of the most common themes in …show more content…
Beatings by the SS were common in the concentration camps in order to intimidate people and maintain control. Some of the violence that occurred was so extreme and unthinkable that many people just didn’t believe it was possible. An example of this brutality occurs in the book when Moishe the Beadle returns to Sighet. He told everyone that he and other foreign Jews were put on a train and when the train arrived in Poland, “they were ordered to get off and onto waiting trucks.” (pg. 6) The trucks took them into a forest where they were forced by the Gestapo to dig large pits and when they were done, the Gestapo shot them all. He also said that “infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns.” (pg. 6) However nobody believed Moishe the Beadle and they thought he only wanted their money and pity. Another example of brutality occurs later when Elie and the other prisoners of his block are leaving Auschwitz to Gleiwitz. They were forced to run and march more than 20 kilometers in extreme cold and the snow at night. If someone could not keep the pace, they were either shot or trampled to death. Not all brutality came from the SS or kapos though, some of it came from other Jews. When Elie was in the train taking him, his father, and thousands of other prisoners to Gleiwitz, they were given no food or water, so they had to live off of the snow. Later, as the train was passing some workmen, the men threw …show more content…
It is also a theme that changes drastically as the book goes on. At the start of the book, Elie’s faith in God is absolute. He studies Jewish mysticism and he prays day and night. Nothing seemed like it could shake his unconditional faith… until the Holocaust. Shortly after Elie’s arrival in Auschwitz, the selfishness, cruelty, and evil everywhere makes Elie wonder how God could just let it all happen. As summer came to an end, so did the Jewish year. On the last day of the Jewish year, Rosh Hashanah, ten thousand prisoners gathered in the Appelplatz for an evening prayer service. While this happens, Elie rebels against God. He doubts God’s power and existence and is angry that if God is there, he is letting this happen to his own people and he is letting them suffer when they hadn’t done anything to deserve it. In the past, he had always asked God for forgiveness, but now he now, he no longer cared. “My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God..”(pg. 68) Months later, when the prisoners of Auschwitz were marching to Gleiwitz, Rabbi Eliahu asked Elie if he knew where his son was. Elie said he did not know, but he quickly realized that he did see the Rabbi’s son, but it looked like his son was actually trying to get away from his father. Elie did not say anything to Rabbi Eliahu he afterwards he says; “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer
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