In Night, author Elie Wiesel gives his account of the terrors he experienced living in a German concentration camp during World War II. The book starts off with an explanation of Wiesel’s town Sighet, in Romania. He goes on to discuss some of the townspeople including Moishe the Beadle, who warns the town about how fast the Germans are approaching. The Germans arrive and put all the Jews in ghettos before loading them into cattle cars and bringing them to a camp called Auschwitz. Elie and his father are separated from his mom and sister. They then moved to another camp called Buna. Soon they have to move to another camp, Buchenwald; this is done by running for miles through the snow. On each step of Elie’s journey more people are killed or die. Elie wrote about the thoughts he was having as he experienced all the deaths, suffering and other horrific moments in the camps. He shared these thoughts with readers because he believed people need to know what happened to the Jews during World War II. It is a part of history that should never be forgotten. By writing Night, Wiesel was able to share with the world the hard truth about the holocaust in a very real and impacting way, not the basic way that is written about in textbooks. Night is about more than the statistics learned about in history class, it is about how those statistics came to be. Night is a historical retelling of the events during the holocaust from the perspective of a Jew living in a concentration camp. The book was written in Wiesel’s perspective. Because the book was written in 1st person point of view, the reader feels like they are in the middle of the same situations Elie was involved in. It is very easy for the reader to form a deep connection to the book and Elie’s life. When reading Night, gruesome pictures are painted in your brain through Wiesel’s descriptive word choice. An example of this word choice is, “And so he remained for more than half an hour between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished (Wiesel 65)”. Moments like these give readers a completely new view of the holocaust. They take readers out of their disbelief and make the event seem real. Wiesel’s main argument in Night is just how much living in a concentration camp affected the residents behavior and thoughts.
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The horrific realities experienced by the prisoners made them act inhumane. The prisoners acted like animals. Even before the Jews got to the concentration camps their behavior changed. Mrs. Schachter, a woman in the cattle car to Auschwitz kept shouting, “fire! I see a fire! I see a fire (Wiesel 24)”. In response the other passengers beat her up, almost killing her. Later in the concentration camps, Elie “gave him [father] what was left of my soup. But my heart was heavy. I was aware that I was doing it grudgingly (Wiesel 107)”. Wiesel gets his argument across by writing about his actions and the actions of those around him. One of the reasons why he successfully accomplished educating readers on how much behavior and thoughts of people in a concentration camp change is because he, himself was one of those people. Wiesel was writing about his first hand experiences. He was able to write things down exactly how they happened because he was there witnessing the events. Wiesel took it a step further by allowing readers to go into his mind and see his thoughts about how he was acting. He said he felt extremely guilty about almost not giving his dad some soup. These comments also provide insight to the extreme measures the prisoners took in order to survive. Another aspect of Night, that helps strengthen Wiesel’s argument is the way he choose to start the book. He started the book before he was taken to Auschwitz, when he lived in a normal town, with a normal family, and had normal friends. The normality of Elie’s life changed Moishe was taken from town but came back
The horrific realities experienced by the prisoners made them act inhumane. The prisoners acted like animals. Even before the Jews got to the concentration camps their behavior changed. Mrs. Schachter, a woman in the cattle car to Auschwitz kept shouting, “fire! I see a fire! I see a fire (Wiesel 24)”. In response the other passengers beat her up, almost killing her. Later in the concentration camps, Elie “gave him [father] what was left of my soup. But my heart was heavy. I was aware that I was doing it grudgingly (Wiesel 107)”. Wiesel gets his argument across by writing about his actions and the actions of those around him. One of the reasons why he successfully accomplished educating readers on how much behavior and thoughts of people in a concentration camp change is because he, himself was one of those people. Wiesel was writing about his first hand experiences. He was able to write things down exactly how they happened because he was there witnessing the events. Wiesel took it a step further by allowing readers to go into his mind and see his thoughts about how he was acting. He said he felt extremely guilty about almost not giving his dad some soup. These comments also provide insight to the extreme measures the prisoners took in order to survive. Another aspect of Night, that helps strengthen Wiesel’s argument is the way he choose to start the book. He started the book before he was taken to Auschwitz, when he lived in a normal town, with a normal family, and had normal friends. The normality of Elie’s life changed Moishe was taken from town but came back