IRB 1

Excerpts/Quotes:

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.

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.

The camp looked as though it had suffered an epidemic: empty and dead.

The night was gone. The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me. A dark flame had entered into my soul and devoured it

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

Topic:

In my opinion, I think that Elie Wiesel is trying to get the point of hope, and faith across in his memoir, "Night". Throughout the memoir he explains times of hardship and horror, and focus's on the issue of faith. I think that the main topic is whether or not one can keep his or her faith during times of extreme hardship. "Do you see that chimney over there? See it? Do you see those flames? (Yes, we did see the flames.) Over there-that's where you're going to be taken. That's your grave, over there." Living in constant fear and knowing that someday that you will die would make you feel hopeless and lose faith. He talks about his body is lifeless and he is just an empty shell. Wiesel vividly depicts the horrors of his experience in the Holocaust and has no filter when he says it. This makes the reader feel a type of empathy for Wiesel. I think that "Night" is really a good depiction of what horror and suffering can do to one's faith and hope. Unlike "The Diary of a Young Girl", this memoir takes place INSIDE the concentration camps. After reading "Night", one can really understand the horrors of what it was like to be inside one of these camps.