Night Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel’s Night is a vivid account of the horrors of the Holocaust. Night tells of not only Wiesel’s stolen innocence, but also of the darkness that forever extinguishes the light in his soul as well as the soul of all those who are touched by the Germans. His witnessing of good people turned into brutes through atrocities and brutal treatment, all the lies and deceit, and the air of death which constantly surrounds him and his people give shape to the darkness which extinguishes the flame in his soul.

He retells of the torture, the starvation, the beatings and the death which surround them all and the effect it has on them. He describes how good people, people he himself knew previously, or had come to know in his time at the concentration camps, succumbed to the treatment they experienced and begin to turn on one another, himself included.

“I had watched the whole scene without moving. I kept quiet . . . any anger I felt at the moment was directed, not against the Kapo but against my father. I was angry at him, for not knowing how to avoid Idek’s outbreak. This is what concentration camp had made of me.”

The Whole book is filled with lies, lies from the Germans and from the Jews, but I think that the lies were said for a good reason, to keep the hope. Eliezer lies to his cousin Stein about Stein’s family, giving him false hope. Was this an act of mercy or an act of cruelty? I think it was an act of mercy, to keep him alive, wishing someday go out to that place and be happy with his family again.

Though he and his father had drew strength from one another throughout the beginning of their ordeal, Wiesel himself succumbs to the thinking of most who surround him; “Here, ever man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else. Even of his father. Here, there are no fathers, no brothers, and no friends. Everyone lives and dies for himself alone.” They can think only of their own survival, driven mainly by the instinct to survive, which does not give consideration for others around them.

The Holocaust and death can be considered one in the same. Though many survived this horrendous event, it was not without a cost and many told that though their bodies remained alive, their heart and soul died. Many claim to be nothing more than the walking dead, without a heart and a soul; a shell, or distortion, of their former selves for their real selves perished in this event. Wiesel was no exception to the companionship of this shadow of death and its lasting effects. Though his body survived, the death around him had forever changed him, robbing him of all which constitutes life. “Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, of all eternity, of the desire to live.” He witness death all round him, from his first night of the concentration camp. “A lorry drew up at the pit and delivered its load-little children! Yes, I say it-saw it with my own eyes . . . those children

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