Themes In Night By Elie Wiesel

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Evil is all over the world, in the biggest cities and the smallest of countries, it takes over and plants fear into the human mind even when the evil is gone. Throughout World War II, Hitler controlled most of Europe with an extremely large Nazi Army. His target, the Jews, gypsies, and other non Aryan races, to cleanse Germany of what he viewed as impurities. During the years 1939 through 1945, he successfully killed 11 million people, 6 million of that number belonging to the Jewish population. In addition, the victims were burned in crematoriums, poisoned in gas chambers, beaten by Nazi’s, and shot on death marches. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, he experiences harsh conditions such as starvation, brutality and death. Furthermore, …show more content…
Elie and his family were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Once he arrived, Elie was immediately overcome with the smell of burning flesh generated by the crematoriums. He was then separated from his mother and sisters, only having his father by his side. Next, he and his father were sent to a flaming pit where they joined the other Jews, walking towards their deaths, including trucks full of children being dumped into the pit. Before he could walk to his death, they were ordered to break off from the line and head towards the cell blocks. Thus, Elie took numerous pledges after this terrifying event. In one he says how his God was murdered. His pledge is as follows “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes,”(Wiesel 34). This is the first time Elie showed a loss of faith. At this point, Elie pledged how he would never forget the moments where his faith in God was destroyed. However, some prisoners keep their faith in God despite the Nazi’s overpowering force. Viktor E. Frankl in his piece Man’s Search for Meaning wrote about how these prisoners gave away their rations to comfort others in the camp. Frankl said how it is the person who chooses how they act and what to believe. However, Wiesel's experience proves that from the moment he stepped off the train, the Nazi’s were already showing a strong dominant and overwhelming force. Elie continued to suffer through the harsh labor of the camps. As he watched other prisoners pray and ask God for help, he continued using his own strength to survive. Even when Passover, a Jewish holiday of fasting to cleanse the spirit, came that year Elie refused to fast. “And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God's silence,” (Wiesel 69). From this point on, Elie no longer had any faith left in God. While the other
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