Night Study Guide Questions
Section 1- pgs. 3 – 22
1. Describe Moishe the Beadle.
2. Describe Elie Wiesel’s father. What was his occupation?
3. Why was Moishe the Beadle important to Elie Wiesel?
4. Summarize the story Moishe the Beadle told upon his return from being deported. Why did he say he
had returned to Sighet?
5. What was the public reaction to Moishe’s story?
6. What was the setting and the year for the first section of the book? What was the world condition at
the time?
7. Describe, in order, the events that happened from the lady day of Passover until Pentecost.
8. What is a ghetto?
9. How did Wiesel say he felt about the Hungarian police?
10. Who was Maria? What happened when she visited the Wiesel family in the ghetto?
Section 2 – pgs. 23-28 and Section 3 – pgs. 29-46
11. To what did Wiesel compare the world?
12. What did Madame Schachter see in her vision?
13. How did the other people in the car react to Madame Schacter?
14. Where did the train stop?
15. What did the Jews in the train car discover when they looked out the window?
16. When did Wiesel say the travelers left their illusions behind?
17. Which notorious SS officer did they meet at Auschwitz?
18. What was Elie’s main thought as the men and women were being herded from the train?
19. What prayer were the people saying? Why was it unusual?
20. What did Elie do when the gypsy struck his father? Why? What was his father’s response?
21. How long were Elie and his father at Auschwitz? Where did they go after that?
Section 4- pgs. 47-65
22. Describe Elie’s encounter with the dentist.
23. What did Elie Wiesel do when Idek hit his father? What was he thinking?
24. Who took Elie’s gold tooth? Why did Elie give it up?
25. What were the only things in which Elie took an interest?
26. How did Elie describe the men after the air raid?
27. What happened to the young man from Warsaw? Why?
28. How did Elie say the soup tasted the night the pipel (young servant boy) was hanged?
Section 5- pgs. 66-84
29. What did the men do on the eve of Rosh Hashanah?
30. How did Elie feel while the others were praying?
31. What was Elie’s decision about fasting on Yom Kippur? Why did he make that decision?
32. What was Elie’s “inheritance” from his father? Why was his father giving it to him?
33. Did the men remember to say the Kaddish for Akiba Drumer?
34. What did Elie dream of when he dreamed of a better world?
35. What happened to the patients who stayed in the hospital instead of being evacuated?
36. What was the last thing the head of the block ordered to the men to do before they evacuated? Why?
37. What was the weather like during the evacuation?
Section 6 – pgs. 85-97, Section 7 – pgs. 98-103, Section 8 – pgs. 104-112, Section 9 –pgs. 113-115
38. While running, an idea began to fascinate Elie. What was the idea? What kept him from carrying
out his idea?
39. What did Elie realize about Rabbi Eliahou and his son?
40. What was the name of the camp to which the men walked?
41. Describe Elie’s meeting with Juliek.
42. How long were they at Gleiwitz? Where did they go next?
43. Who was Meir Katz? What happened to him?
44. How many men started out in the train? How many were left when they arrived at Buchenwald?
45. What happened to Mr. Wiesel, Elie’s father?
46. What was Elie’s only desire?
*Be prepared to describe characters.
*Plan to use information from text to create a plot map.
*Vocabulary from context.
*Choose one theme to discuss and cite relevant passages that support the theme.
*Have folder activities complete and ready to turn in.
Night Study Guide Answers
Section 1
1. Moshe the Beadle worked at the Hasidic synagogue, and was very poor, though no one was
embarrassed by him. Physically, he was as awkward as a clown. He was waiflike and timid, with great
dreaming eyes. He spoke very little, but instead would sing or chant.
2. Elie’s father was very well respected in the community. He was unsentimental and rarely displayed
his feelings, even with his family. He took his duties in the community as higher importance than being
there for his family. His job was running a store with his wife.
3. Moshe was important to Elie because he was going to help him with his studies in the Kabala.
4. Moshe told the story of when he was send away with the other Jews, and how they were driven into
the forest in Poland. They were then told to dig mass graves, and then to line up in front of the graves,
where they were shot, and fell into the graves. Moshe took a bullet to the leg, but did not die. He was
able to escape and come back to Sighet to warn the people of the horror that was going to come.
5. The people didn’t believe Moshe. They thought that he was telling tales and that there was no way
that people could be that awful.
6. The setting and year of the first part of the book was Sighet, Elie’s hometown, from the years 19411943. In 1943, everything began to change.
7. Passover services were being held in people’s homes. The synagogues were closed, and the people
did not want to provoke the Germans. The Jewish celebrated quietly and among themselves. At the end
of Passover, the edicts started: No Jews were to leave their homes for 3 days; no Jew was allowed to own
valuables; and all Jews had to wear the yellow star on their clothing.
8. A ghetto is a grouping of houses on several streets where the Jewish people were to live, as if it were
a private, closed off community. They functioned within themselves and were not to leave their ghettoes.
9. Elie felt that the Hungarian police were supposed to protect them, and they were doing the exact
opposite. He felt hatred for the first time in his life, and it was toward the Hungarian police.
10. Maria was the Wiesel’s housekeeper. She went to Mr. Wiesel and told him that he and his family
could hide at her house and escape. Mr. Wiesel refused, but told him wife and children that they could go
if they wanted to. No one left with Maria.
Night Study Guide Answers
Sections 2 and 3
1. A cattle wagon, hermetically sealed.
2. Flames shooting into the sky.
3. They all think that she is crazy. They tie her up, gag her and beat her on her head to shut her up.
4. The train stopped at Birkenau, reception center for Auschwitz.
5. They saw flames and giant furnaces, which they later find out were used to burn people in.
6. He said that they left their illusions behind with their belongings on the train.
7. Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death.
8. To stay with his father, at any cost. He did not want to be separated from him.
9. The Kaddish, prayer for the dead. It was unusual because a living person would not say the prayer for
the dead for themselves, while they were alive.
10. Elie did nothing when the gypsy struck his father. Elie was afraid that something would happen to
him if he defended his father. It was strange because Elie would do anything to defend his father.
11. They were at Auschwitz for three weeks. They left Auschwitz and were sent to Buna.
Night Study Guide Answers
Section 4
1. Elie was sent to the dentist, and it was discovered that he had a gold crown. The dentist needed to
remove the gold crown, but Elie faked that he was ill and had a fever. The dentist told him to get better,
and come back and see him within 2 weeks. The dentist also told Elie that he better not have to come
looking for him.
2. Elie stood by silently while Idek beat his father. Elie had been the victim of Idek’s wrath before, and
he did not want to have that reigned down upon him again. Elie was thinking that he was angry, not at
Idek, but at his father, for not being able to avoid Idek’s wrath.
3. Franek the foreman was the one who got Elie to give up his gold tooth. A Polish dentist, also a
prisoner, took the tooth, painfully, in the bathroom. Elie gave up the gold tooth because Franek began to
beat and torture Elie’s father.
4. Surviving one more day, eating the little rations of soup and bread, not getting beat.
5. The men seemed cheerful, hopeful that they were close to being saved.
6. The young man from Warsaw was to be execute for stealing during the air raid.
7. Elie said that the soup tasted like corpses.
Night Study Guide Answers
Section 5
1. The men gathered together for a quick religious service in honor of Rosh Hashana.
not supposed to meet for religious reasons, so they had to do so quietly and secretly.
The men were
2. Elie felt that there was no reason to pray. God hasn’t helped them at the camps, so why would be
bothered to help them now?
3. Elie was not going to fast on Yom Kippur. His father made the decision for him, being that they
barely get any food as it is, he refuses to let Elie to fast in honor of Yom Kippur, and get even more
weak and sickly.
4. Elie’s inheritance was a knife and a spoon. His father was giving it to him because
there was an
important selection that day and his father felt that he was going to be selected to be killed, and wanted
Elie to have whatever it was that he was able to give to him.
5. No, they forgot all about it.
6. Elie dreamed that
7. The patients at the hospital were liberated (released) two days after the Russians showed up.
8. They were ordered to clean their block, because the head of their block refused to let the Russians
invade their block and see that the men lived like pigs.
9. The weather was freezing cold and snowing throughout their evacuation
Night Study Guide Answers
Sections 6, 7, 8 and 9
1. The idea of just falling to the ground and being trampled to death fascinated Elie. The fact that his
father was alive and continued to run beside him was the only thing that kept Elie going.
2. Elie realized that Rabbi Eliahou’s son left the Rabbi running in the back, because the Rabbi was
holding his son up by running slower. Rabbi’s son did not want to be killed for falling out of line, or
being too slow, so he went on ahead so as not to be held back by his father.
3. The name of the camp was Gleiwitz.
4. One night, Elie heard the violin playing. He realized that it was Juliek. Juliek played the violin while
Elie fell asleep. When Elie awoke, he realized that Juliek was dead, and his violin had been crushed.
5. They were at Gleiwitz for 3 days. They learned that they were to be sent to the middle of Germany on
cattle cars.
6. Meir Katz was a friend of Elie’s father. Meir Katz froze to death on the train, on the last day of their
travel to Buchenwald. Elie’s father had to tried to keep him hanging on to reach their destination, but he
gave up.
7. They started with about 100 men on the train. When they arrived at Buchenwald, only 12 living men
remained.
8. Elie’s father’s cot was empty on the morning of January 29th. He was taken to the crematorium. Elie
does not know if he was dead, or still barely breathing. Elie wondered if there were any prayers said for
his father.
9. Elie’s only desire was for an extra ration of soup.