I enjoyed the book titled Night, written by Elie Wiesel. The book was an intriguing and sad story about the author's early life during the holocaust. The author's name is Elie Wiesel (Eliot Wiesel). He is a survivor from the Holocaust of which took place starting around the year 1933. During the Holocaust the dictator of Germany, Adolf Hitler, wanted to execute all Jews who lived in Europe before the holocaust. Millions of Jews were killed. Nazis were non-Jews who were brain washed into Hitler's ideas about experimenting on and killing Jews. If any of the Jews disobeyed the Nazis, they would be beaten, murdered, or even put to death. The Nazis were very cruel to the Jews and would kill them for no reason. The Nazi who killed them would laugh. A good example of their cruelty is that infants would be thrown into the air to be used as gun targets.The Nazis sent the Jews to ghettos so that they would all be in one spot. After being in the ghettos, the Jews were brought to concentration camps where they would be put to work and fed very little. Every once in a while in the concentration camps Jews would be selected to be killed. There were a series of camps and each one that they were sent to was harder than the last, but they all had the same basic schedule: wake up, drink coffee, work, eat soup and bread, work, roll call, work, sleep.The Jews worked all year long. The Jews were running on one occasion in the winter to an abandoned village; if one of them slowed down, they would be trampled and killed. Whenever the author and his father got there the author almost immediately fell asleep, but his father quickly woke him up because the ground was covered in snow and corpses. Many of the corpses on the ground had died from falling asleep in the freezing cold snow.
At some parts of the book it is overwhelming, though there was some small moments of comical relief. For example, when the author described the infants being used as target practice, I was overwhelmed with sadness. At one part of the book, though, the author's father put on some jeans that were meant for a child; it made me chuckle.
The author expresses deep feelings in the book and also goes into great detail about his experiences. Not only does the author explain his experiences, but he explains the people who were with him in the concentration camps, too. There was a friend of the author who was said to have loved his violin very much and in the book he died while playing it in the cold. The violin was his only comfort since he had nothing else. In other words, the author explains the reason behind why the people in the book did what they did. The author describes his family, also, of which consisted of him, his sister, his mother, and his father. His mother and sister were separated from the author and his father at the beginning of the book because men and women had to be separated. His father was with him throughout the book but in the end his father got sick and died along with millions of other people.
Death came to the jews through gunshots, gas chambers, sickness, and hangings. The hangings in general were common occurrences witnessed by the prisoners. The prisoners saw so many hangings that they were desensitized. However, one particular hanging was unbearable for the author; that of a kind and young pipel. He was well liked by the prisoners. When he was hanged his body was too light and his neck did not snap like it was supposed to so he hung there choking and dying a slow death. The author describes his food tasting of corpses that dismal evening.
At a concentration camp one day the Jews did not have to work. Some people ate bread crumbs off of the floor and others remained working. The author went into the kitchen. He wandered around the building and stumbled upon one of the Nazis having an affair. When the Nazi spotted the author he got mad at him for wandering around the building (even though there was no rule that they weren't allowed to). The next day the author got whipped 23 times and he passed out.
Near the end of the book the author completely lost faith in god because of the physical and mental state that he was in. He was skinny, hungry, and his foot was infected. I am hoping that he regained faith in god even with what he went through. It does not say if he did or did not in the book.
When Hitler was defeated by surrounding countries the few Jews that lived were freed from captivity and no longer were under the Nazis' command. When the author was freed he first went to a place to eat before going to the hospital to treat his pus-oozing foot. He said that he had no thought of revenge, only of food. There was a girl in the book who had been kind to the author during their time at the concentration camp. Years later the (now grown up) girl and the author met again on a metro rail and had coffee with him that day. The book never mentions whether or not Elie Wiesel reunited with his mother and sister. Before I read this book I didn't realize that the Jews were tormented and went through devastating events. I have a better understanding now that I've read this book and studied the holocaust. The book really amazed me by how the author explained his past. Some things made me laugh and others made my eyes get teary. There were a few passages that I did not understand; though I understood the overall message. If I were Elie Wiesel, I wouldn't have been able to bear the pain that he felt for more than a day. I could have read the book over and over again and still have felt the same emotions that I felt the first time I read it.
No comments:
Post a Comment