Eliezer's Journey In The Book Night
In Night by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist Eliezer struggles through the Holocaust facing many challenges that are almost unbearable by overcoming his mind and hallucinating to believe it was all a nightmare. Throughout Eliezer’s journey through hell, he faces many hardships that are life changing. Night is a memoir about Elie Wiesel’s life in concentration camps during the holocaust. The year is 1941 when Elie, the deeply religious boy with a loving family consisting of three sisters and parents, is taken from home and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie is separated from family members (mom and sisters), but remains with his father, only to be transferred from camp to camp. Through their perilous journey, Elie tells about the death
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of family members, the death of his own innocence and suffering to a point in which life and death does not matter anymore. Because of all these dreadful challenges that are all unforgettable, Wiesel has hard time writing about his memoir with many struggles due to the amount of horrifying scenes he has faced.
Camp: A place with temporary accommodations of huts, tents, or other structures, typically used by soldiers, prisoners or travelers. When the word camp is heard by someone, they often think of an outdoor adventure that expresses the joyfulness of nature, but because of Eliezer’s experience in Auschwitz, he hears the word camp and thinks of a horrifying and disgusting jail cell that is like hell in a prison city.
As Eliezer goes throughout the journey of hell, he goes through several camps of harsh treatment that no man can even think of. When he arrived at the new camp of Buna he described it as if it was the cold-hearted soul of a graveyard: "The camp looked as though it had been through an epidemic; empty and dead." (Pg.47). When Wiesel hears the word camp, he has an understanding of a horrifying prison with death instead of nature that creeps up on him like a devil filled with a heart of pure bloody torture. However, most of us, including myself, hear the word camp and think of an outside, adventurous experience living in a tent with the only fear of a bear or a small spider. We think of a relaxing, vacation like, village to have picnics, go out hunting and live in the beautiful hands of Mother- Nature. As Eliezer goes deeper in his reality nightmare, he finds that the never-ending torture keeps on getting worse over time: "The gates of the camp opened. It seemed as though an even darker night was waiting for us on the other side." (Pg.84). Well Eliezer was right. The other side was a darker hole filled with a devils bloody soul. They first went to camp Gleiwitz after a long snowy cold march and then …show more content…
took another trip on an extremely cramped train, with no food for ten days, to camp Buchenwald where only a dozen of them survived because an icy cold wind killed off the rest. At last, they (the few remaining) got to take showers and eat just a little, but Eliezer’s father got so sick that he died of slowly suffering from an extremely painful illness. At the end, some enemy troops came to save the few remaining Jews, but when Eliezer sees his self in the mirror after an unexplainable crucial journey through hell, he doesn’t recognize himself. For Eliezer, camp was never a place to enjoy nature, but a place with devastating years filled with torture above and beyond that no man can even imagine of.
Fire: combustion or burning, in which substances combine chemically with oxygen from the air and typically give out bright light, heat, and smoke. Because of the Nazi’s extreme dehumanizing torture and cruelty of the Jews in Hitler’s concentration camps, Eliezer becomes devastatingly emotionally frightened when he hears the word fire. As Wiesel goes through the line of death or hell, he reaches the end and is saved from going to the pit of flames and instead is sent to the abandoned barracks of death and torture. As he walks towards the barracks, he thinks of everything that has happened to him all the way from living a simple life being a young learning student to a survivor of deep, nightmare-like torture; “Never shall I forget the little faces of the children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever… My soul had been invaded-and devoured-by a black flame.” (Pg.34 and 37) As for I, when I hear the word fire I have a complete different thought. I don’t think of a pit of flames with people being thrown in it, but of a camp fire made from logs in the breezy night having roasted delicious marshmallows with my amazing family. I think of the wild fire in forests that harm trees or the flame coming out of a lighter for someone to take their cigar over it and enjoy smoking. I think of the flame underneath the stove that is cooking a delicious sweet and sour soup or fireman saving fires and protecting people at all cost being the heroes of the day. But, with the death by fire and flames in the concentration camps, fire has a totally different meaning to it for Wiesel. It meant devastation of fear and a horrendous way to torture the eyes of every living Jewish soul in the concentration camps. Before Eliezer was directed to the barracks with hope of a nightmare, he saw a terrifying scene no human could believe: “Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes… children being thrown into flames.” (pg. 32) The unexplainable scene was so unbearable and atrocious that the old saying “you have to see it to believe it” didn’t make sense. The humiliation of babies being thrown by their feet ten feet in the sky into a burst of flames was not only disturbing, but also dreadful. And the most shocking part about it was that some of those babies were alive and others were lingering between life and death. Now that is what you call torture to the next level. A level no man can even imagine of seeing. For Eliezer, fire was never roasting marshmallows on a cold breeze day on a camp fire, but instead a staggering nightmare that came to a grim reality.
Life & Death: deciding whether someone lives or dies; vitally important. For many people, including myself, the idea of life and death means two things: life means you live to do the everyday things you need to do and death means someone died and someday you will also, but For Wiesel, life and death mean Today I lived through the nightmare, but tomorrow I may die and won’t really care even if I do.
Eliezer and his father were told that they have to work and as they listened to the SS officers they saw a sign saying “Warning! Danger of Death. Was there a single place where one was not in danger of death?” (pg.40) Like most of us, if we ever saw that sign we would think of a construction area or an electrical line area. When I hear the word death I also think of a death in the family or that someone in the world just died. I may also think that everybody dies and I can die tomorrow or today. But for Eliezer, Life and death are like a joke that they hate with passion. When they were called for roll call one day, three people were going to be hanged and one of them was a child. When they were hanged, Eliezer had to look at them closely and then he saw them and said “…he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.” (pg. 65) This is what life and death meant for Wiesel. It was either I die to today or I live in torture worse than the devils hell. When he heard the word life he thought of how his life went from a simple fun life to a grim reality of hell. How he has the worse life possible, but there
is someone out there complaining about their life because they broke up with their girlfriend. How can they even say they have a bad life compared to Eliezer? And when the word death comes through Wiesel’s mind, he thinks of an everyday life aspect. He sees people dying right in front of him and believes that he would just be better off dying instead of being a survivor of the cruel horrifying torture. For Wiesel, life and death wasn’t an option, it was a demanded daily life aspect to either live the slave-like torture or die and be happy it was over and that he was “free at last”.
As you can see, Wiesel had a difficult time writing about his memoir because of all the terrifying hardships he went through such as torture, starvation and multiple other struggles. His memoir is very important to the world today because when people read his book, they think about their own life and how “bad” it actually is. They learn about the Holocaust and learn the lessons of real hardships. They look back and appreciate what god has given them. The message is still relevant till this day due to the tormenting and shocking real life stories Wiesel has shared with us. It really gives you an idea of what a horrible life is like and how you need to be thankful for everything god and the world has given you and done for you.
Camp Buna; A place that was empty and dead that looked like it had gone through an epidemic.
SS Officers during the holocaust throwing little small innocent babies in a ditch of flames crucially.
Many Jewish innocent people hanged by the crucial arrogant SS officers lingering between life and death on the rope. Eli Wiesel as a young boy.
Eliezer after and during the Holaucost. The red arrow in the black and white picture is Wiesel in the concentration camps and the right picture is Wiesel with Oprah Winfrey. The upper left picture is just a potrait of Wiesel today.
of family members, the death of his own innocence and suffering to a point in which life and death does not matter anymore. Because of all these dreadful challenges that are all unforgettable, Wiesel has hard time writing about his memoir with many struggles due to the amount of horrifying scenes he has faced.
Camp: A place with temporary accommodations of huts, tents, or other structures, typically used by soldiers, prisoners or travelers. When the word camp is heard by someone, they often think of an outdoor adventure that expresses the joyfulness of nature, but because of Eliezer’s experience in Auschwitz, he hears the word camp and thinks of a horrifying and disgusting jail cell that is like hell in a prison city.
As Eliezer goes throughout the journey of hell, he goes through several camps of harsh treatment that no man can even think of. When he arrived at the new camp of Buna he described it as if it was the cold-hearted soul of a graveyard: "The camp looked as though it had been through an epidemic; empty and dead." (Pg.47). When Wiesel hears the word camp, he has an understanding of a horrifying prison with death instead of nature that creeps up on him like a devil filled with a heart of pure bloody torture. However, most of us, including myself, hear the word camp and think of an outside, adventurous experience living in a tent with the only fear of a bear or a small spider. We think of a relaxing, vacation like, village to have picnics, go out hunting and live in the beautiful hands of Mother- Nature. As Eliezer goes deeper in his reality nightmare, he finds that the never-ending torture keeps on getting worse over time: "The gates of the camp opened. It seemed as though an even darker night was waiting for us on the other side." (Pg.84). Well Eliezer was right. The other side was a darker hole filled with a devils bloody soul. They first went to camp Gleiwitz after a long snowy cold march and then …show more content…
took another trip on an extremely cramped train, with no food for ten days, to camp Buchenwald where only a dozen of them survived because an icy cold wind killed off the rest. At last, they (the few remaining) got to take showers and eat just a little, but Eliezer’s father got so sick that he died of slowly suffering from an extremely painful illness. At the end, some enemy troops came to save the few remaining Jews, but when Eliezer sees his self in the mirror after an unexplainable crucial journey through hell, he doesn’t recognize himself. For Eliezer, camp was never a place to enjoy nature, but a place with devastating years filled with torture above and beyond that no man can even imagine of.
Fire: combustion or burning, in which substances combine chemically with oxygen from the air and typically give out bright light, heat, and smoke. Because of the Nazi’s extreme dehumanizing torture and cruelty of the Jews in Hitler’s concentration camps, Eliezer becomes devastatingly emotionally frightened when he hears the word fire. As Wiesel goes through the line of death or hell, he reaches the end and is saved from going to the pit of flames and instead is sent to the abandoned barracks of death and torture. As he walks towards the barracks, he thinks of everything that has happened to him all the way from living a simple life being a young learning student to a survivor of deep, nightmare-like torture; “Never shall I forget the little faces of the children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever… My soul had been invaded-and devoured-by a black flame.” (Pg.34 and 37) As for I, when I hear the word fire I have a complete different thought. I don’t think of a pit of flames with people being thrown in it, but of a camp fire made from logs in the breezy night having roasted delicious marshmallows with my amazing family. I think of the wild fire in forests that harm trees or the flame coming out of a lighter for someone to take their cigar over it and enjoy smoking. I think of the flame underneath the stove that is cooking a delicious sweet and sour soup or fireman saving fires and protecting people at all cost being the heroes of the day. But, with the death by fire and flames in the concentration camps, fire has a totally different meaning to it for Wiesel. It meant devastation of fear and a horrendous way to torture the eyes of every living Jewish soul in the concentration camps. Before Eliezer was directed to the barracks with hope of a nightmare, he saw a terrifying scene no human could believe: “Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes… children being thrown into flames.” (pg. 32) The unexplainable scene was so unbearable and atrocious that the old saying “you have to see it to believe it” didn’t make sense. The humiliation of babies being thrown by their feet ten feet in the sky into a burst of flames was not only disturbing, but also dreadful. And the most shocking part about it was that some of those babies were alive and others were lingering between life and death. Now that is what you call torture to the next level. A level no man can even imagine of seeing. For Eliezer, fire was never roasting marshmallows on a cold breeze day on a camp fire, but instead a staggering nightmare that came to a grim reality.
Life & Death: deciding whether someone lives or dies; vitally important. For many people, including myself, the idea of life and death means two things: life means you live to do the everyday things you need to do and death means someone died and someday you will also, but For Wiesel, life and death mean Today I lived through the nightmare, but tomorrow I may die and won’t really care even if I do.
Eliezer and his father were told that they have to work and as they listened to the SS officers they saw a sign saying “Warning! Danger of Death. Was there a single place where one was not in danger of death?” (pg.40) Like most of us, if we ever saw that sign we would think of a construction area or an electrical line area. When I hear the word death I also think of a death in the family or that someone in the world just died. I may also think that everybody dies and I can die tomorrow or today. But for Eliezer, Life and death are like a joke that they hate with passion. When they were called for roll call one day, three people were going to be hanged and one of them was a child. When they were hanged, Eliezer had to look at them closely and then he saw them and said “…he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.” (pg. 65) This is what life and death meant for Wiesel. It was either I die to today or I live in torture worse than the devils hell. When he heard the word life he thought of how his life went from a simple fun life to a grim reality of hell. How he has the worse life possible, but there
is someone out there complaining about their life because they broke up with their girlfriend. How can they even say they have a bad life compared to Eliezer? And when the word death comes through Wiesel’s mind, he thinks of an everyday life aspect. He sees people dying right in front of him and believes that he would just be better off dying instead of being a survivor of the cruel horrifying torture. For Wiesel, life and death wasn’t an option, it was a demanded daily life aspect to either live the slave-like torture or die and be happy it was over and that he was “free at last”.
As you can see, Wiesel had a difficult time writing about his memoir because of all the terrifying hardships he went through such as torture, starvation and multiple other struggles. His memoir is very important to the world today because when people read his book, they think about their own life and how “bad” it actually is. They learn about the Holocaust and learn the lessons of real hardships. They look back and appreciate what god has given them. The message is still relevant till this day due to the tormenting and shocking real life stories Wiesel has shared with us. It really gives you an idea of what a horrible life is like and how you need to be thankful for everything god and the world has given you and done for you.
Camp Buna; A place that was empty and dead that looked like it had gone through an epidemic.
SS Officers during the holocaust throwing little small innocent babies in a ditch of flames crucially.
Many Jewish innocent people hanged by the crucial arrogant SS officers lingering between life and death on the rope. Eli Wiesel as a young boy.
Eliezer after and during the Holaucost. The red arrow in the black and white picture is Wiesel in the concentration camps and the right picture is Wiesel with Oprah Winfrey. The upper left picture is just a potrait of Wiesel today.