Doug+and+Denny

Night by Elie Wiesel

** Wiki Constructed by Doug & Denny Summary: **

In the beginning of the book Eliezer the main character of the book who is only fourteen at the time and is living in and in the town Sighet. He has three siblings, two older sisters named Ilda and Bea, and one younger sister named Tzipora. His parent are shopkeepers and his father is a esteemed figure in the Sights Jewish community.Elizers teacher Moshe is expelled because of the Hungarian army but escaped and comes back to tell the horrors of the concentration camps. Sadly no one believes him and thinks hes a lunatic. In the spring of 1944 the Hungarian government falls, and is then occupied by the German army and slowly the Jews must wear yellow, and are confined to ghettos.Crowded together into narrow streets behind barbed wire fences. A short time after that the Nazis begin to deport all of the Jewish familys. Elizers family was one of the last to be deported. Packed into cattle cars the Jews were being treated like animals in unimaginable conditions.The prisoners on the train find out, when the train eventually stops, that they have reached Auschwitz station. This name means nothing to them, and they bribe some locals to get news. They are told that they have arrived at a labor camp where they will be treated well and kept together as families. This news comes as a relief, and the prisoners let themselves believe, again, that all will be well. With nightfall, however, Madame Schächter wakes everyone with her screams, and she is beaten into silence. The train moves slowly and at midnight passes into an area enclosed by barbed wire. Through the windows, everybody sees the chimneys of vast furnaces. There is a terrible, but undefined, odor in the air—what they soon discover is the odor of burning human flesh. This concentration camp is Birkenau, the processing center for arrivals at Auschwitz. Now after getting off the train they are separated into groups to where the weak and those who can work will be separated; the weak are immediately killed. His mom and younger sister are separated from Elizer and his father. They never see them again. After that they meet up with another prisoner who fills them in on the details of this horrific place and then again they are split up into groups. Elizer lies about his age and his occupation and both him and his father are put in the same group to be sent to work in the prison. In the prison they are shaved and sterilized with gasoline and must wear prison uniforms. They are told by the guards that they have to choices to either work or die in the crematorium. After asking to go to the bathroom Elizers father is beaten this shows the brutality that the Nazis have. After a little while they are forced to walk a four hour walk to Buna where they do strenous labor and are kept there for months. Elizer is now chosen to work in a ware house factory and his father is also there. There he meets up with a violin player named Juliek and two brother named Yoshi and Tibi. The next concentration camp they would march to is Glewitz, and after staying in Glewitz for a time, they would finally arrive at their last destination; Buchenwald. Near the end of the book, Eliezer's father dies of dysentery, and from there Eliezer describes the months as thinking of nothing but food. In April that year the American tanks would arrive at the concentration camp liberating the Jews. However a resistance movement prior had already driven the Nazi's out of the camp. **

Characters :**

**Eliezer**- Eliezer is the main character / narrator of the book as well as the author. Eleizer's main difficulty which the rest of the Jewish population shares is the struggle to maintain faith in humanity, life, and family. He is 14-15 years old though out the experience of the "Holocaust"

Struggles to maintain faith Strong Willed Loyal to Father
 * Traits / Qualities:**


 * Chlomo (Eliezer's Father)**- Chlomo is described as a quiet reserved man. Elizer says that in is life before he was deported to concentration camp, Chlomo was a man who was more involved with the community matters than his own family. Eliezer describes a particular situation when his father does not even recognize a relative who they bump into inside one of the concentration camps. The bond gets stronger between Him and Eliezer throughout the book. When he first enters the concentration camps, he is 50 years old, but lies and passes himself off as 40. Unfortunately, Eliezer's father is severely weakened and undernourished and dies of dysentery along with a severe beating my a Nazi official.

Quiet / Reserved Strong Bond to Son
 * Traits / Qualities:**


 * Moshe the Beadle**: A small religous character who is a teacher to Eliezer of Jewsih teachings, mentioned in the beginng of the book who is quite respected in the community, even though he is poor. However once he starts talking about how he saw Nazi officials severely beating and attacking Jewish people, the community shuns him, and stereotype him as being crazy.


 * Madame Schachter**: A woman who is present in the train that Eliezer and his family are in when they were deported from Sighet. She screams and shrieks about a fire in the distance every night on the train. The rest of the people on the train who desire to keep from going as "insane" as her : "silenced" her several times with strong beatings.


 * Juliek**: A young violin player who is sadly crushed to death under a massive amount of Jewish people stacked on top of each other.


 * Dr. Josef Megele**: A notorious doctor at Auschwitz who was in charge of choosing who would pass the "selection" (life of work or death), and historically performed obscene and cruel experiments on Jewish subjects.


 * Rabbi Eliahou**: Another Jewish person in Eliezer's camp vicinity whose son abandons him. Eliezer prays that he would never lose faith toward his father and abandon him. Ironically toward the end of the book when Chlomo is dieing, Eliezer starts to "mentally" abandon him.


 * Franek**: Another worker in the warehouse at Buna who desires Eliezer's golden tooth and gets a dentist to remove it with a spoon.


 * Idek**: Eliezer's kapo at the warehouse in Buna. When Eliezer steps in on Idek unexpectedly, Idek makes sure he pays the price and gets Eliezer whipped several times.


 * Setting And Tone :**

The setting is mostly to and from concentrations camps throughout the book, including marches to each one. The tone throughout the book is on a steady decline from losing hope to almost complete hopelessness. The horror and cruelty experienced is so unprecedented that it shakes the previously strong religious and moral foundations that Eliezer had had established.

Auschwitz / Birkenau > Buna > Gleiwitz > Buchenwald
 * Concentration Camps Chronologically**:


 * Symbols **:


 * Night**: Night itself symbolizes a world without god. Since Eliezer was previously very religiously devout, the very idea of a world without god is unconventional. Night and darkness occur at prominent moments where something horrible is happening, or about to happen. For example, the run from Buna to Glewitz occurs during darkness where plenty of Jewish people were shot and trampled leading to their death.


 * Fire**: Fire symbolizes the evil destructive power of the Nazi's and sheer death itself. It also symbolizes the fire in the crematory where the unfortunate people who did not pass selection were sent to their deaths.

**Themes**:

One of the themes is the important bond between father and son. In the book Eliezer, and his father rely on each other for hope and faith in their struggle to hang onto life in horrible conditions. The bond between them gets stronger and stronger throughout the book until they reach a stage where the father is dieing. Previously Eliezer had saw another boy abandon his weak father, and he prayed that nothing would ever ruin the bond between him and his father. Ironically, Eliezer seems to stray and turn from his father but feels shame in doing it.

Another theme is trying to maintain faith in God. Throughout the book, Eleizer's faith in God is constantly tested as he and his loved ones face the cruel conditions of the concentration camps controlled by the Nazis. He struggles to maintain faith when he says good bye to his siblings and mother at the first selection. He wonders how God could allow such cruelty to take place on Earth anywhere.


 * Critique **:


 * Denny's Critique-** Overall I thought this book was a very powerful and moving book which gives vivid and descriptive detail of what happened during the Holocaust. This is an excellent book and is a must read for everyone.


 * Doug's Critique**: The sole fact that the book is written based on true personal events is startling and horrifying. Aside from that however, the author strings together all the events in such a way that keeps the reader glued to the pages like its an entertaining fiction book. He also adds figurative language like foreshadowing for example that expand the book's approach to the reader enveloping them into the work. He tells the story in such descriptive detail, the reader is able to form pictures and experience Elie Wiesel's tragedy like they were standing next to him the whole time.
 * Additional Information **:

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity

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