“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my
life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall
I forget that smoke. 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. Never shall I
forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire
to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul
and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am
condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” -Elie Wiesel The
Holocaust-the mass murder of European Jews by the Nazis during World War II. It
was the unthinkable, the horrific murder of 6 million Jews and millions of
civilians of different ethnic and racial backgrouds. It was average men entering
the German army and turned into Nazis, cold-blooded killers. It was the
connotation of Holocaust which became Night, by Elie Wiesel. This paints a
picture, full of vivid imagery and truth, about the genocide of his own people.
Elie witnesses the starvation, brutal beating, and eventual death of his
friends, family, and fellow Jews. Wiesel, himself, survived Auschwitz, Buna,
Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz, all German concentration camps, where atrocities such
as cremation and murder hung thickly in the air like a heavy cologne. Born
September 30, 1928, Eliezer Wiesel led a life representative of many Jewish
children. Growing up in a small village in Romania, his world revolved around
family, religious study, community, and God. Yet his family, community, and his
innocent faith were destroyed upon the deportation of his village in 1944. One
of the main topics in this book is how Elie, a boy of strong religious faith,
along with many of his fellow jews, lose their faith in God due to the horrific
effects of the concentration camps. Elie Wiesel lived his early childhood in the
town of Transylvania, in Hungary, during the early 1940s. At a young age, Elie
took a strong interest in Jewish religion, while he spent most of his time
studying the Talmud. Eventually he makes aquaintances with Moshe the Beadle who
takes Elie under his wing, and also instructs him more in depth of the ways of
the Talmud and cabbala. Elie is taught to question God for answers through
Moshe’s instruction. Moshe is sent away to a concentration camp, and upon his
return, Elie finds that he has changed dramatically. This is a foreshadowing of
what will become of Elie’s faith in the strength and power of God. “Moshe
had changed...He no longer talked to me of God or the cabbala, but only of what
he had seen.”(4) The first evidence of Elie’s loss of faith, is while he
questions God during the selection process. This process is concerned with
separating the young, strong, and healthy Jews, from the old, weak, sickly,
and/or infants. The Jews were separated from their loved ones who were
immediately sent to the crematory or burned in large fire pits. Elie says
goodbye to his mother and sister, unknowing that it will be the last time that
he will ever see them again. Many of his fellow Jews began to pray and recite
the Kaddish, a Jewish prayer for the dead, with hopes to console their own
grievances for the loss they had suffered. However, Elie questions, “Why
should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and
Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?”(31) Elie witnesses a load
of children being dumped into a pit of flames which he labels as the “Angel of
Death,” and at this point, the diminishing effects of the first night of camp
life are already taking a toll on Elie’s religious faith and personal
self-worth. The final deterioration of Elie’s idea of God, where he renounces
all belief in His existence, is during the funeral of 3 Jewish males who were
hanged the day before. One of whom was a child, so mere in weight, whom struggle.