FREE ESSAY ON NIGHT

NIGHT

Night, By Elie Wiesel is a devastatingly true story about one man's witness to the
genocide of his own people. Living through the horrifying experiences in the German
concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Elie sees his family, friends and fellow
Jews starved, degraded, and murdered. In this essay I will address three important topics
expressed throughout the course of the book. First, I will discuss the struggle and
eventual loss of religious faith by Elie in his battle to maintain humanity in this
de-humanizing environment, and what ultimately enabled him to survive. Second, I will
show the established relationship between Elie and his father, and the impact life in the
camp had upon it. And finally, give my personal opinion on why Elie Wiesel wrote this
book. 
One of the main topics in this book is how Elie, a boy of strong religious faith, as well
as many Jews lose their faith in God because of the atrocities that take place in the
concentration camps. Elie Wiesel lived his early childhood in the town of Transylvania,
in Hungary, during the early 1940's. At a young age Elie took a strong interest in Jewish
religion as he spent most of his time studying the Talmud. Eventually he comes across
Moshe the Beadle, who would take him under his wing and instruct him more in depth of the
ways of the Talmud and cabbala. Through Moshe's instruction, he is taught to question God
for answers. Later Moshe is sent away to a camp and upon his return to Sighet presents
the reader with a foreshadowing of what will soon come in the book. Elie recalls, "Moshe
had changed....He no longer talked to me of God or the cabbala, but only of what he had
seen."(4) Thus right away the reader is exposed a loss of religious faith in Moshe, the
same loss that will soon plague Elie.
When Elie arrives at Birkenau, the reader sees the first evidence of his loss of faith as
he questions God during the selection process. Amid the selection many Jews are separated
from their loved ones who are immediately sent to the crematory or burned in large fire
pits. Although unaware to him at the time, this is the last Elie will ever see of his
mother and sister. For this reason, many Jews are grieving and begin to recite the
Kaddish, a Jewish prayer for the dead. Here Elie questions, " Why should I bless his
name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What
had I to thank Him for?"(31) Shortly after, as he marches toward the barracks, Elie
witnesses a load of children being dumped into a pit of flames which he labels the "Angel
of Death". At this point the reader sees the diminishing effects the first night of camp
life is already having on Elie as he vows, "Never shall I forget those flames which
consumed my faith forever... Never shall I forget these moments which murdered my God and
my soul and turned my dreams to dust....Never."(32)
Each day at the German concentration camp further and further deteriorates Elie's belief
in God. The final moment, where he renounces all belief in the existence of God comes at
the funeral of three Jewish males who were hung the day before, one of which was merely a
child so light in weight that he hung struggling for nearly an hour before he died. Elie
states, "This day I ceased to plead....My eyes were open and I was alone-terribly alone
in a world without God and without man....I ceased to be anything but ashes, yet I felt
myself to be more powerful than the Almighty, to whom my life had been tied to for so
long."(65) Here the reader can sense the immense loss that Elie is overcome by having
spent most of his childhood seeking salvation only to conclude it was all a waste of
time. With the loss of his religion, Elie's only will to survive lies solely in the love
for his father and hope, a hope that some day he will see an end to the nightmare of
concentration camp life forever. 
Before forced evacuation into the concentration camps, Elie and his father were not very
close emotionally. In fact, his father rarely showed emotion or concern toward family
matters at all. Elie's father was one of the leading men that the community held in great
esteem. Yet Elie's father did not approve of him wasting time with religion and readings
of the cabbala, which formidably created a barrier of separation between father and son.
The only bond between the two when they reach the camp is the desire to stay with each
other," family". 
After witnessing the horror of the first night at the camp and the separation of his
family and families of others, the bond between Elie and his father seems to grow
stronger. Because of his old age, Elie's father is constantly struggling with the
militant style of camp life. When he is beaten for not being able to march properly in
rank, Elie spends time inside the blocks teaching him how to properly march in place.
Unlike many of the other Jews who criticize Elie, he does not abandon his father to fend
for himself. Instead he is constantly by his father's side looking out for him and doing
what he can to keep his father out of trouble. 
Eventually concentration camp life frustration takes its toll on Elie as he begins to
feel less and less remorse for his father. One day as he and his father are loading
diesel engines into a train, one of the guards strikes out at his father. "You lazy old
devil", the guard shouts out as he beats Elie's father to the point of collapse. Elie's
response to this beating is very much different though. He felt that it was his father's
own fault. He states, "Any anger I felt at the moment was directed, not against the Kapo,
but against my father. I was angry with him. For no knowing how to avoid Idek's
outbreak."(64) 
The only reason left to live after he has given up all faith in god is for his father.
His father needed him. He questions," What would he do without me? I was his only
support" and so throughout the last winter there Elie's ongoing struggle to survive was
met by his struggle to keep his father alive. Eventually when his father is stricken with
Illness he grows weary of constantly taking care of him. While Elie's father grew weaker
so did he. At one point when he was in search of his father he thought, "Don't let me
find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my
strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself."(101) When his
father eventually did die, it was due to a blow on the head by an officer and the last
words were that of Elie's name as he called him for water. Ashamed forever, this is what
concentration camp life had done to Elie.
I believe that Elie Wiesel wrote this book as a living testament, being one of the few
survivors of the Holocaust. He felt it was his duty to justify how so many of his people
could be allowed to die while the world remained silent. He and his people did not create
the Holocaust, but rather the Holocaust created them. As a survivor, Elie has no choice
but to tell all who will listen what the silenced victims would tell if they could speak
for themselves today. Having lost his entire family to the aftermath of the Holocaust,
one can only hope that the world can learn from the Jewish people's suffering and prevent
history from repeating itself.