Night

Reaction Journal


Pages 1-10

December 18, 2007/Page 9:
"We drank, we ate, we sang. The Bible bade us rejoice during the seven days of the feast, to be happy. But our hearts were not in it. Our hearts had been beating more rapidly for some days. We wished the feast were over, so that we should not have to play this comedy any longer."

This seemed a little strange to me. I understand why they would wish the feast to be over sooner-so that they could go home and not act happily-but it would still seem to me that they would rejoice, even if they know it may be the last time. However, it may even foreshadow what they will think of religion later on in the book.

PAGES 11-20

January 1, 2007/Page 14:
"There was joy-yes, joy. Perhaps they thought that God could have devised no torment in hell worse than that of sitting there among the bundles, in the middle of the road, beneath a blazing sun; that anything would be preferable to that. They began their journey without a backward glance at the abandoned streets, the dead, empty houses, the gardens, the tombstones....On everyone's back was a pack. In everyone's eyes was suffering drowned in tears. Slowly, heavily, the procession made its way to the gate of the ghetto."

I thought of it as a sad thing that these poor people were considering this a vacation. Instead they received a place of torture and imprisonment. They were glad to be leaving their homes and lives. They figured it would just be a small trip, an adventure in their lives. Little did they know that Moshe the Beadle was telling the truth.


PAGES 21-30

January 1, 2007/Page 25:
"We looked at the flames in the darkness. There was an abominable odor floating in the air. Suddenly, our doors opened. Some odd-looking characters, dressed in striped shirts and black trousers leapt into the wagon. They held electric torches and truncheons. They began to strike out to right and left, shouting: 'Everybody get out! Everyone out of the wagon! Quickly!' We jumped out. I threw a last glance towards Madame Schachter. Her little boy was holding her hand. In front of us flames. In the air that smell of burning flesh. It must have been about midnight. We had arrived-at Birkenau, reception center for Auschwitz."

These poor unfortunate souls finally realize where they are and what is happening. They have no idea what is to come-death perhaps-but they are hoping against it. Yet with the smell of burning flesh in the air and the sights that they are about to see… Only the strong will get through this.


PAGES 31-40

January 1, 2007/Page 31:
"'Yitgadal veyitkadach shme raba... May His Name be blessed and magnified...' whispered my father. For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. 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?"

This is the first of many instances in which Elie begins to doubt God. His father who remans religious prays to Him. But Elie says he has no reason to thank God, if there is one. This is exactly what the Nazis wanted of them-to eliminate the Jewish religion by ending their belief in God.


PAGES 41-50

January 1, 2007/Page 42:
"Some talked of God, of his mysterious ways, of the sins of the Jewish people, and of their future deliverance. But I had ceased to pray. How I sympathized with Job! I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted His absolute justice. Akiba Drumer said: "God is testing us. He wants us to find out whether we can dominate our base instincts and kill the Satan within us. We have no right to despair. And if he punishes us relentlessly, it's a sign that He loves us all the more."

Akiba and many others still have faith in God. Elie has not lost his belief, but some of his ideas of God have gone askew: he no longer believes in God’s power, no longer believes what Akiba is saying. Akiba is a basic projection of the belief of almost every Jew in the camps. That view of God may change in time, though.

PAGES 51-60

January 1, 2007/Page 52:
"I had watched the whole scene without moving. I kept quiet. In fact I was thinking of how to get farther away so that I would not be hit myself. What is more, any anger I felt at that moment was directed, not against the Kapo, but against my father. I was angry with him, for not knowing how to avoid Idek's outbreak. That is what concentration camp life had made of me."

This passage is extremely significant. It shows just how the concentration camps had changed him, and started dehumanizing him. He was becoming not a human, but an object. This would likely happen to every one of the prisoners soon, which is exactly what the concentration camps were created for.

PAGES 61-70

January 1, 2007/Page 62:
"For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "Where is God now?" And I heard a voice within me answer him: "Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows..." That night the soup tasted of corpses."

There is no way I could write about anything other than the little angel-faced boy in these past ten pages. This is the time when they believe that God is finally dying to them. But he is struggling not to die. This means that they want to keep him in their hearts, and they want to believe in him, but with this occurrence of despair I their hearts, burned into their memories as if branded there, there is just no way they can believe in any divine being anymore.

PAGES 71-80

January 1, 2007/Page 73:
"In three days I shall no longer be here.... Say the Kaddish for me. We promised him. In three days' time, when we saw the smoke rising from the chimney, we would think of him. Ten of us would gather together and hold a special service. All his friends would say the Kaddish. Then he went off toward the hospital, his step steadier, not looking back. An ambulance was waiting to take him to Birkenau. These were terrible days. We received more blows than food; we were crushed with work. And three days after he had gone we forgot to say the Kaddish."

This shows the view of “every man for himself.” They were taught to forget what had happened very quickly, and needed only to care for and rely on themselves. This was how they had been taught since the time in the concentration camps, and it was how they kept alive. It is, however, very unfortunate.

PAGES 81-90

January 1, 2007/Page 83:
"We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything-death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth."

This shows their will and ability to stay alive, no matter how much they wanted to die. They wished to keep alive more than anything else, and they were strong enough to do it. Stronger, even, than the Nazis, who had to contain them with weapons. The Nazis who had to switch off running in the same snow that these “numbers” ran in mechanically and without thought.

PAGES 91-100

January 1, 2007/Page 95:
" Some years later, I watched the same kind of scene at Aden. The passengers on our boat were amusing themselves by throwing coins to the "natives," who were diving in to get them. An attractive, aristocratic Parisienne was deriving special pleasure from the game. I suddenly noticed that two children were engaged in a death struggle, trying to strangle each other. I turned to the lady. "Please," I begged, "don’t' throw any more money in!" "Why not?" she said. "I like to give charity..."

This is the cruelty of humanity. Elie learns now just how evil men can be, even to their fellow humans. The actions of the Parisienne woman reminded Elie of his experiences during the holocaust. The sad part is that Elie was permanently scarred for life because of what he saw during those terrible times in the concentration camps, especially on the train, where a boy even went to the length of killing his own father for bread, only to die after the struggle.

PAGES 101-109

January 1, 2007/Page 109:
"One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me."

This is one of the most unbearably depressing lines within the book. To not see yourself for years, then look at your reflection and see the dead. Assuredly Elie has seen enough dead already, then to have to look like one himself… It is as if it was not his own body that he was in. Unfortunately he cannot escape the body that assumes, though he should hope to some day leave behind those memories, but he has even said, even if he lives as long as god, he never shall forget.


Questions

1. Elie Weisel's childhood home was in Sighet, Transylvania.

2. The cabala is a collection of Jewish writings dating from the medieval period, which consists mainly of speculative and symbolical interpretations of Hebrew scriptures.

3. The truths that Weisel was referring to were truths about the human race, why we do what we do, more information and investigation into his faith and belief in God. The kind of truths that Weisel was ignorant of were those that dealt with the fact that some humans do not treat others well, and that you cannot control what others do, say, and think

4. Moshe the Beadle was a significant figure in the novel in that he taught Elie all that he knew about the cabala and about thier religion and faith. What he tells Elie about answers his numerous questions and teaches him that the truth is that you have to search for what you want to find. Moshe was prescient in his admonition to Elie because he had seen the evils that were to come to them if they did not leave as soon as possible.

5. The people of Sighet ignore Moshe the Beadle after his escape because they are naive-they rely too much on the Russians and Americans and believe that what he is telling them is farfetched. They do not listen to him because they do not want to believe that what he is saying is true.

6. Madame Schatcher is the lady boarded on the train on thier way to Auschwitz. The people believe she is crazy because of her cries about the furnaces (only to learn later on that they are true). People do not listen to her and this is how she is similar to Moshe the Beadle. Her "prophecies" go unbelieved by the passengers on board the train.

7. This passage was all about the experiences that led Elie to lose faith in his God, in his people, and in himself. This is a section of the book in which he expresses strong feelings toward his experiences during the Holocaust.

8. Basically, this passage was about Elie's emotional ideas and emotional scarring after the Holocaust had ended. It shows that he will never forget the horrors that happened to him and his family. For as long as he lives, he says he will always remember.

9. Throughout Night, Elie first believes there is a God, and that He is constantly present in every soul, no matter who you are or what you've done. However, while in the "death camp," his views on god change. He then believes that if there was in fact a God that this concentration camp would not exist. Others in the camp thought otherwise; that there was in fact a God, and that He is using this camp to test their faith.

10. The literal meaning of night in Night is that it is simply time for rest. However, the symbolic meaning that night has in Night is the darkness that surrounds the Jewish and the others being oppressed. It is the darkness in their hearts, clouding their thoughts and judgement. However, there is always darkness before the dawn...

11. Night in my opinion is a very small Book because Wiesel did not wish to overdo it. Few disturbing images would have been enough. He probably did not wish to ruin the book with disgusting instances and horrific tales that would have frightned people from reading it-yet he set in just enough detail to get the point across: that none should ever do anything like this again.

12. Night can be interpreted as both a memoir of tragedy and of triumph. It is tragedy because of the horrors that had occurred at the concentration camps and those spoken of in the novel. Triumph because of the courage and the strength the survivors needed to keep living, to keep alive, and survive.