Colin+and+Ashlan

= **Night** = By Eliezer Wiesel​

Summary--
In the beginning of //Night//, the narrator, Eliezer, is living peacefully in Sighet, Transylvania. he has a religious life and reads from the Torah. His teacher, Moshe the Beadle, is deported and Elie cannot study it without him. A couple months later, Moshe returns and tells him of the Germans and how they took the Jews into the woods and slaughtered them. He says he escaped by playing dead. Nobody in the town believes him though. Some months later, Eliezer and his family started hearing about Germans moving closer and closer to their location. Eventually, they arrived at Eliezer's town. At first, they seem harmless, pleasant even. But then, they started to force the Jewish people to move into small, uncomfortable ghettos. One after the other. They stayed like that for months. Then, one day, they were told by the Germans that they would be leaving the following day. The Jews had to give up any and all gold or silver objects to the German officers. The Jews were forced to march to the train station and they had been crammed in 80 per car. Days went by and they were starting to become hungry. On the third night, a woman started screaming, crying about fire, when there was nothing but darkness. The next few nights went by like that and the men eventually tied her down, gagged her, and eventually beat her in order to shut her up. Then, finally, they arrived at their stop: Birkenau, Auschwitz. Immediately, the women were seperated from the men. This was the last time Eliezer had seen his mother or sisters. From this point on, Elie was determined to stay with his father. They had to go through quick inspections to see if they woulod be put into the furnace at Auschwitz or put to work. Elie and the other men had to march past a pit which had been dug for the sole purpose of burning babies. This had disturbed Elie more than anything in his life thus far. Those who were able to, were moved to Buna. This was the work camp. The Jews were treated like slaves, or maybe worse. There were inspections after inspections which grew tedious. They got low rations of food which barely kept them alive. Bread and soup were all the variety they had. It felt like an eternity had gone by like this. every time a prisoner had misbehaved or done something wrong, the were punished. either by whipping or by hanging. Both punishments was watched by the other prisoners in the camp to remind them of what would happen to them. It hadnt been long since they arrived at the camp that the Jews were no longer concerned with the other people's safety or well being. It was an every man for himself attitude throughout the camp. Eliezer even notes that he had seen children leaving or even beating their parents in order to survive. After a few months, Elie needed a foot operation. It had swollen and was in pain. The operation was a success nonetheless. While recovering, the camp had to be evacuated due to Russians advancing on their position. The Jews were forced to sprint through the January snow all the way to the nearest concentration camp. When they reached the camp, everybody, including the Nazis, were exhausted. Many people died during the journey and many others never woke up from naps they took in the snow when they reached the camp. And, yet again, the survivors were loaded into cattle cars and headed off to Buchenwald. Once there, Eliezer's only real concern was to keep his father alive because he nearly died along the journey. His father was weak and at the end of his faith. Others at the camp often beat him and stole his food. It wasnt long before he gave up and died. Eliezer was now empty. He had no soul and no faith. Then, one day, Americans had breached the camp and they were set free. But Eliezer was a changed person and he would be for the rest of his life.

**Characters-- **
__**Eliezer**-__ A young jewish boy,narrator of the novel, wrote his experience/story going through and surviving the Holocaust and the changes he has gone through along the way __**Eliezer's dad**-__ Goes through the Holocaust with his son, he gave up and died right before Elizer is saved __**Moshe the beadle**-__ Eliezer's teacher of Jewish mysticism. He is a poor jewish man who lives in Sighet and tells a story which makes people think he is crazy __**Madame Schachter**-__ The lady that Eliezer met on the train who screamed about seeing fire when there really were no fires __**Juliek**-__ A musician Eliezer meets in Auschwitz who plays the violin. Eliezer woke up to Juliek dead because he got trampled because of such cramped conditions __**Dr. Joseph Meagele**-__ A cruel doctor in Auschwitz know as "angel of death" who took out Eliezer's golden tooth with a rusty spoon __**Rabbi Eliahou**-__ A Jewish prisoner who preached at the camp __**Franek**-__ Eliezer's foreman at Buna __**Idek**-__ Head of Eliezer's block at Buna

 Setting/tone--
The setting of //Night// is at concentration camps throughout Germany, during World War II. Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Buna. The beginning of the book starts out in Sighet, Transylvania. The overall tone of the book is written through Eliezer's personal expierence. This makes the tone be subjective and personal.

**Symbols-- **
__**Night**__- represents the world without God. At night, Eliezer had stopped praying anymore.

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__**Fire**__- represents death and suffering. In Auschwitz, Nazis burned Jews in a huge furnace. This kept most of the jews at the camp in line. They feared the fire and therefore the Nazis had good control over them. =====

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__**The struggle to maintain faith**__- in the beginnging of //Night// Elie is a sttrong believer in God. Then, during his experience, he starts to question God. He asks why He would let such a thing happen. He starts to conclude that God either doesnt exist, or that He is cruel, just like the Nazis keeping him in these camps. But still, at the end of the holocaust, he is alive and his faith comes back to him.=====

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 * __Cruel and inhumane treatment-__** Eliezer first believes that humans are generally good. But going through the cocentration camps, he starts to think differently. He sees how bad the Nazis are treating the prisoners and eventually, how bad the prisoners are treating eachother. He realizes, that when people are treated so badly, the goodness within them drains out either until they are not being treated that way anymore, or until the goodness has completely dissapeared from their body.=====

Critique--

 * __Colin__**- Night was good. I liked especially that it was written from experience, not from factual information. The personal and emotional aspect made it 10x better.
 * __Ashlan__**- Overall, i enjoyed the book and enjoyed learning about Eliezer's expierence. It was told well, and helped me understand the Holocaust better.

Elie Wiesel speech