Concentration Camps In Elie Wiesel's Night

Night by Elie Wiesel provided the world with a deep and painful insight to the horrors within the German lines. Throughout the novel, many lines tugged at the heart strings of audience members because they depicted true thoughts of Jewish captives during this time period. Though most of the novel described life in concentration camps, three lines truly portray the feelings, emotions and mindset Jews had under the Nazi regime.

"Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes..." (Wiesel 34). This line shows the impact concentration camps had on Wiesel's life, soul, and belief. As a child, Wiesel became Godless for he saw no God of his would allow this massacre to ensue. An impact of the life within camps was that his very soul shattered at the sight and smell of burning women and children, adults aging within a few days from malnutrition and exhaustion, and witnessing Jews everywhere being beaten, shot or dying of exhaustion.
Another example of why his soul was murdered was how mercilessly he was beaten and whipped by Nazi soldiers. As his time in the camps progressed, his dreams had become crushed as he realized he was stuck there until he was killed. To conclude, the line's relevancy to the novel was immense, it had portrayed true thoughts many Jews had at the time under the conditions of concentration camps.

Two excerpts from Night that are significant in telling what it was like in camp are: "the soup tasted better than ever" (Wiesel 63), after witnessing the young man being hung in Warsaw

and "the soup tasted of corpses" (Wiesel 65), after the pipel was hung in the center of the camp. After bearing witness to the youth being hung in Warsaw, the soup tasted better than ever because he was not of any importance to the Jews. For example, to Wiesel, the young man was seen as no one and therefore gave the hung man no thought. Wiesel thought primarily of the food and was desperate to eat due to the harsh feeding schedules enforced by the German soldiers and was not bothered by the dead prisoner. The second line was the result of a child being hung along with two men. The child was suspended by the neck, but it had not broken because he weighed too little, forcing his life to remain for another thirty to forty minutes. He was tortured prior to his death, even as a small child. His death was so heavy hitting that the Lagerkapo refused to take part in the murder for the pipel was too young. Thus making Wiesel's soup taste of corpses, he saw what he felt was God, die ogn the gallows as the young boy.

"I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else.
He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people" (Wiesel 81). Wiesel no longer believed in God at this point, especially to have more faith in Hitler. He had given up hope and no longer felt as if he and his fellow Jews were going to feel the joys of freedom. For example, Hitler did keep his promise to the Jews, that they would suffer and pay for the hard times Germany had been through, so they had lost hope. They firmly believed God had given up on the Jewish community and hoped Hitler would soon complete his promise by ending their suffering once and for all. For this reason the quote was relevant to the memoir. It showed how much suffering and pain had managed to change Wiesel in to having more faith in Hitler than his own God for He had done nothing to prove His power by saving the Jews from the evil bestowed upon them. In conclusion, to Wiesel, not even God could keep his promises like Hitler had throughout his
reign.

Night by Elie Wiesel counts the days of Wiesel's youth in which he was captured, along with his family, by Nazi soldiers. As the novel progressed, Wiesel experienced changes and witnessed horrific events which inevitably forced a shift in how he viewed the world around him. Although many lines of the book described concentration camp life, a few lines provided the readers to truly understand how devastating this time period was to the Jews. One specific line said by Wiesel was that he had more faith in Hitler than anyone for he was the only person to keep his promises to the Jews, more so than God Himself. This was to show how the way of thought of the Jews had changed. To conclude, Wiesel's memoir of his time in captivation by the German forces showed the world what it was like to live in a place where your soul, mind and beliefs would be shattered every waking day.