Reflection Of Night By Elie Wiesel

The Holocaust is an event that many individuals would like to erase from history. Discussing the largest genocide to ever occur can be an uncomfortable topic to say the least, yet also one of great importance. How could an entire population be discriminated against, ripped from their families, dehumanized, and then murdered in the millions for their faith, while the rest of the world pretended to be oblivious from more than a quarter of a decade? Answers may vary but one fact that remains is that many of us can only imagine how this happened much less what it was like to live through. However, for people like Elie Wiesel, our worst nightmare, was a reality. "Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short, simple words.
He is moved from camp to camp, beaten, tortured, forced to bear witness to traumatic hangings upon other murders, forced to run dozens upon dozens of miles as the Russian liberators close in on Nazi Germany, and all starting, when he is first separated from his mother. My drawing, tried to incorporate this, along with other imagery and themes from Night. A man shovels babies into a mass grave. These babies are comparable to those described by Moshe the Beadle. A Nazi watches the prisoner work, as another continues the process of selection in the background, continuing to tear families apart and ruin lives. This selection, is similar to Eliezer recollection of his last moments with his mother. Another guard stands in a watchtower, analogous to the one described in the bombing scene in which Eliezer mentions the ‘empty watchtowers.’ However, most importantly is the worker himself. Upon closer examination, it can be seen that the number on the man’s arm, is the same number as Eliezer himself. This brings about the harsh realization that this is not a man, but just a boy, a fifteen-year-old, who has been deprived of his
There is constantly a gut-wrenching sense of worry whenever something even remotely abnormal happens to someone we care about. I remember being on the phone with my mother as she exited a train. Suddenly, I heard static and the connection cut. While I now know that it turned out to be nothing particularly ‘life-changing,’ all I can remember is walking (hastily) to my sister and explaining to her what had taken place and how my mother was now not answering her cell phone. I frantically asked what we should do, and then almost simultaneously, my mother called me. The odds of something bad happening to her in those few minutes between the connection cut and her call was unlikely, yet somehow, the possibility had me on the verge of tears. In the most basic sense of the word, I can relate to Eliezer. That fear of never seeing your parent again, or a sibling, spouse, anyone you love really, is devastating, and for Eliezer, an incomprehensible reality. In every way, I want to help him fight, push himself, survive, yet I can’t because this is his past, and so instead of fixating on the past, I push for a better future by utilizing this quote of the worst moment in human nature, so that it may never happen to anyone