How Does Elie Wiesel Change

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It is said that six million deaths resulted from the Holocaust, an event in which the Nazis attempted to eradicate the Jews. In his autobiographical novel Night, Elie Wiesel illustrates what it was like to be a Jew during this devastating time. As a young boy, he was forced out of his hometown, separated from his family, and imprisoned in Auschwitz, one of Hitler’s gruesome concentration camps where he was put through physical and mental misery. Although Elie Wiesel was one of the few that survived, his identity changed over the course of the camp. If we examine the horrific experiences that Elie endured, we can see that they had changed him both emotionally and spiritually. Before being taken to the concentration camp, Eliezer is a devout …show more content…
Upon the Wiesel’s arrival to Auschwitz, the first concentration camp, they are divided, and Elie is left with only his father. “We were alone,” Elie recalls (38). Although he will no longer be able to see his mother and sisters, Eliezer now realizes his father is the only family he has left and starts to care, protect, and look after his father more than before. As the story progresses, Elie’s father grows weaker, and his son contemplates whether he should give his father rations of his food. “It’s too late to save your old father, I said to myself. You ought to be having two rations of bread, two rations of soup” (115). At this point, Elie realizes it is a waste to spare the bread for his dying father when he could be benefiting from it himself. In the concentration camp, survival depends on one’s selfishness, and this slowly forces Elie to care for his own health, strength, and survival. Furthermore, when his father passes away, Elie “did not weep,” as he “had no more tears,” but he strangely felt “free at last!” (116). Elie’s experience has stripped him of his emotions and feelings, for he cannot even cry over his father’s death. However, he feels free now that the burden of keeping his weak father alive has been lifted from his shoulders and is now able to worry about himself and his own
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