Night Personal Response Essay Example

ironic that the Jews of Sighet are trapped in their own synagogue, their house of prayer, especially on a Saturday. It must have been painful for them to see the broken altar and the torn down walls and hangings. Chapter 2 Madame Schachter is a very disturbing yet intriguing character in this chapter.

She is foreshadowing the fire to come and even mentions the furnace. Again, it is a warning, which the people fail to pick out. The Jews on the train consider her insane and even beat her to make her shut up. This is yet another example of the naivety of humans, they did not believe that such atrocities could be done. •When the Jews on Eliezer’s train arrived at Birkenau and saw flames in front of them and smelt “burning flesh” in the air, you would think that they had finally realised what was going on.But they still believed this was a work camp.

The reader feels terrible at this point, just wanting to scream out to them that this is not a work camp but a concentration camp, that they are going to die. •The thought of the smell of burning flesh really disgusts me but I cannot even begin to imagine what such a smell would actually smell like. Previously, whenever I thought of fire, I would picture a warm, cosy fireplace but now my image of a fire has been changed to a crematory instead. Chapter 3 •When Eliezer is forced to part from his mother and younger sister Tzipora, I felt a chill down my spine.

The eight simple words that split his world into two are really emphasised

upon in this passage. The fact that neither his mother nor sister are mentioned again in the rest of the book, make it more believable: it is in the nature of the human mind to temporarily forget about people when you yourself are going through so much. •When Eliezer is told to lie about his age, we find out how old he is: 15. The fact that he is my age, has preoccupied me during the reading of the novel/memoir.

Frankly, I do not think that I would have been as strong as he was, to survive the holocaust at such a young age.Today, it is unimaginable that such atrocities could be carried out for so long without anyone intervening. •The passage on page 45 is a very powerful and moving one. “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. ” The repetition of the phrase “Never shall I forget” really emphasises on and illustrated that what Wiesel is describing

will be engraved in his memory forever, that it is impossible to forget. I also think that he wants to spread the word about what happened in the holocaust, raise awareness and make sure that nothing even remotely like it ever happens again. On page 50, when the Gypsy deportee struck Eliezer’s father, Eliezer does not react at all.

Here, Eliezer himself and the reader realise that he has changed, that his new surroundings have changed him. The inhumane way of treating the Jews has transformed them too to behave like animals; only fending for themselves and leaving the others to live their own lives – or in this case, die their own deaths. •“After that, I had no other name” When Eliezer has his number engraved onto his left arm, he feels a loss of identity.This also contributes to the change in character. Chapter 4 •On page 72, “We were no longer afraid of that kind of death” shows that the Jews had already gone through so much that they were not afraid to die from a dropped bomb.

They would have even preferred to die from a bomb explosion, a quick death rather than working until they were so weak that they couldn’t and then being slowly burnt alive. It is always a sad thought to think that anyone is so miserable that they are prepared to die or that they would rather die than live.When reading ‘Night’, it is hard to imagine mental and physical torture that would create such a response, especially if we are reading it in an environment, which has all the comforts of the world. •The public hangings

of the prisoners affected the other prisoners a lot. However, it was the murder of the small child that affected them most, even more so than the millions dying around them. The hanging of the young boy also symbolises the death of Eliezer’s innocence and childhood.

•When he witnesses the public hangings, Eliezer is losing faith in his religion and in God – how could God allow such things?He even goes to say that God is hanging on the gallows. During the fasting season, Eliezer does not fast. It is his own way of rebelling from God. In his situation, I would have probably done the same thing. After losing faith in God, there would be not much point in fasting.

Also, because they were in a concentration camp, it would have been better to eat what you could get your hands on. If Eliezer hadn’t eaten during this period, would he have survived anyway? •Eliezer’s relationship with his father is strenuous. They both know that they support each other, that without one, the other would be lost.However, they also know that by looking out for each other, they lessen their personal chances of survival. When Eliezer learns about the young boy who beat his own father for not making his bed, he prays that he will not do the same thing. His father is his only connection with his family, his home and his past.

Chapter 5 •“I had forgotten that people slept in white sheets” (page 90). This quote clearly emphasises on the things we take for granted. Because Eliezer had been away from home for so long, witnessed terrible things and had

been treated so badly, he had completely forgotten about what normal life was like.On the other hand, perhaps it was better for him that he did not remember or think about it all the time, as this would have made it harder to cope. •“I've got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.

” (page 92) An inmate tells this to Eliezer. This quote shows that God was not present in the concentration camps, but that the Jews could see that the Nazi’s had placed themselves in God’s role, lining up the prisoners and deciding who was to continue living and who was to die. It also shows that many other prisoners, not only Eliezer, had lost faith. It is very ironic, and sad, that Eliezer decides to follow his father on the evacuation march on page 94. If he had decided to stay in the infirmary and pass his father off as a nurse or an invalid, they would have been liberated two days later and would not have had to suffer what they do in the rest of the book.

Of course, he did not know this at the time, and can only look back in regret. •The emphasis on the number of ‘last nights’ Eliezer and his fellow Jews had gone through is very powerful. I felt terrible when reading this part. Eliezer was forever on the move, yet he wasn’t really moving anywhere, his situation just getting worse. The quote on page 96: “Were we men then? ” reminds the reader of how inhumane everything

was.

It was not only the SS treating them ruthlessly, even the Jew themselves were monstrous, violent to each other. They lived like animals in a cage. Chapter 6 •At this point in the novel, Eliezer becomes quite fascinated by death but cannot bring himself to die because he worries about his father. This shows that the father-son relationship is hard on both of them but that either one would feel guilty to leave the other behind – whether in death or life. I got a horrible image from the description of Zalman’s death, trampled to death in the stampede by his fellow prisoners.

When reading this book, we realise – and Wiesel does stress it in different parts of the book – how lucky Wiesel was to have survived the Holocaust. He was so near to death so many times, he witnessed the deaths of millions around him but yet he survived, a rare chance. •“From which world did it come” (page 102) is Eliezer’s comment on his father’s smile when he wakes up. It was probably the only smile any of them had seen since they had left home.

This quote also brought a smile to the reader’s lips, to see that there was still a little but of faith left. •On pages 105 and 106, when Eliezer is being squashed by the other prisoners and is fighting for breath, the passage is written so well that I myself felt out of breath. Chapter 7 •When there is a (yet another) stampede for bread, and a father and son come out dead after having fought with each other, Eliezer was shocked again by how

a father and his son could have gone through so much together yet fight and kill each other over a small piece of bread. The story of Meir Katz also shows how the Holocaust transformed the Jews (before killing them off). He is described as such as strong, robust man but yet he dies miserably. Chapter 8 •After arriving at Buchenwald, Eliezer’s father really feels that he is going to die soon.

It can be said that the roles of father and son have been reversed because Eliezer is now forced to look after his sick father. When Eliezer argues with his father to stay alive, he “felt that he was arguing with death itself” (page 117) This is also a powerful image. When his father runs past Eliezer without noticing or acknowledging him, with a glazed look in his eyes, the reader feels that his soul may be dead but it is just a matter of time before the body dies too. •The quote “everyone lives and dies for himself alone” conveys entirely what was going on in the camp.

Eliezer and his father are trying to prevent this by staying together and not losing touch of each other. Chapter 9 • After his father’s death, life no longer mattered for Eliezer. Clearly, it was all a blur, as he does not mention much of his life afterwards.As he said, “Nothing could touch me anymore” (page 123) •The last sentence of the book is extremely moving and disturbing. “The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.

” Of course, after having survived the Holocaust, Eliezer was a different

person; nowhere near to the innocent boy he was when he left Sighet. I think that he uses the word corpse because he feels that even though he physically survived concentration camps, a part of him (including his faith) has died along with his father. I think that this is a good way to end the book because it really emphasise on the fact that something terrible, inhuman has happened and that it won’t ever be forgotten by those who went through it. I am glad that it doesn’t have a ‘happy ending’ because that is the last thing that the Holocaust was, even if Eliezer himself survived it.

This ending does not really bring hope or faith, but from this, we understand that Elie Wiesel will not stop fighting against what has been done to himself and his family, that he will never allow the Holocaust to be forgotten.