Night

Mayra I. Robles
December 16, 2010
Mr. Dubois
English 11, Lens Essay
The Death of my Innocence “Night” a World Wide best seller, narrates Elie Wiesel’s experience as a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. During 1933 Germany was ruled by Adolf Hitler, who belonged to the Nazi party. The Nazi believed the world should be purified by eliminating all races, especially the Jews. Their belief was that the Aryan race was the most pure and that the Jews were a disgrace to humanity. Hitler was in power during World War II; during WWII he built concentration camps where anyone who did not have Aryan traits or was a Jews had to be sent to. Elie Wiesel was born on 1928, in a small town Sighet, Transylvania (now part of Romania). Wiesel was born into a middle class Jew family; Elie and his family were taken to concentration camps during Hitler’s reign of terror, where he lost his innocence, his God and his father. “The night was gone. The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in flames” (pg. 34). Enduring the first night at camp was the toughest for Wiesel, his denial to belief people were being burned alive led him to think it was all a dream. Unconsciously that night apart of Elie died, the innocent Jew boy that arrived at Auschwitz had die. The power the Nazi’s had gained was being exploited to the maximum at the concentration camps, they were using intimidation and torturing their advantage. Whoever did not obey them or was too weak to keep working was killed on the spot. In a way the Nazis were physically and psychologically torturing the Jews until there was not an inch of desire to live. The Jews are known to be faithful believers of God and many used their faith as a way to endure the thought life at camp. Their God was their last hope and for many elders losing faith was the lost of their desire to life. After seeing so much brutality and cruelty from the Nazi Wiesel began to rebel against God, ““Blessed be the name of the Eternal!”. Why should I bless him?… Because he kept six crematories working day and night?... Praise Thy Holy Name, Thu Who hast chosen us to be butchered on Thine altar?” (pg. 106). Wiesel had lost all faith in God, in his eyes the all merciful and powerful God had once again abandoned his people. His only motivation to survive was his father, his “id” had taken over him and his only desire was to survive and remain next to his father. God was no longer a part of him; Elie considered humans were greater than God. The power had shifted in his eyes, the Nazi were in control now and even though he hated them with every last fiber in his body; he had no alternative but to obey their orders. Wiesel was nothing more than a despicable Jew, who lost his identity and became nothing more than prisoner number A-7713 (pg. 39) to the Nazi. Wiesel knew that the only way to survive was to stay strong enough to work and not be put in Dr. Mengele’s list. “Work is liberty” (pg. 36) Always keeping that in mind Elie and his father endured life at the camp for about a year, but unfortunately his dad did not make it and was cremated the dawn of January 29, 1945. “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I had no more tears… I might perhaps have found something like-free at last!” (pg. 106). The lost of his father destroyed Wiesel’s desire to live but it also had triggered his animal instinct, nothing could affect him anymore. He was in a state of trance the only desire he had was to eat. They (Jews) were at the bottom of the social class now and they were to pay with their life for it. Wiesel’s culture had condemn him to death, the Nazi were determined to wipe out all Jews. The end of the war was near, April fifth, and Hitler was going to keep his promise and exterminate the all the Jews left the camps. The order had been given and ten blocks of Jew deportees were executed each day. April tenth, the resistance had finally decided to act up and took over Buchenwald; Wiesel was finally liberated from the inferno of the concentration camps. Hitler tortured and killed millions of Jews during his quest to purify the earth; He believed Jews were a disgrace to human kind and had to be exterminated. Wiesel and Hitler “id’s” trigger in order to reach their individual goal, a feud that came to an end when WWII ended. Wiesel was saved by resistance but Hitler could not withstand his defeat and took his life. “Night”, Wiesel account of life at Hitler’s concentration camps, portrays the world the power of the mind and of the human determination for survival. In the other hand it also portrays the cruelty of men kind and what can happen when power falls in the wrong hands. “Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provision.” (pg. 109),