By Elie Wiesel
If in my lifetime I was to write only one book, this
would be the one. Just as the past lingers in the
present, all my writings after Night, including those
that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes,
profoundly bear its stamp, and cannot be understood
if one has not read this very first of my works.
Why did I write it?
Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the
contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature
of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that
had erupted in history and in the conscience of
mankind?
Was it to leave behind a legacy of words, of memories, to help prevent
history from repeating itself?
Or was it simply to preserve a record of the ordeal I endured as an
adolescent, at an age when one’s knowledge of death and evil should be limited to
what one discovers in literature?
There are those who tell me that I survived in order to write this text. I am
not convinced. I don’t know how I survived; I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to
save myself. A miracle? Certainly not. If heaven could or would perform a miracle
for me, why not for the others more deserving than myself? It was nothing more
than chance. However, having survived, I needed to give some meaning to my
survival. Was it to protect that meaning that I set to paper an experience in which
nothing made any sense?
In retrospect I must confess that I do not know, or no longer know, what I
wanted to achieve with my words. I only know that without this testimony, my life
as a writer—or my life, period—would not have become what it is: that of a
witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy
from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human
memory.
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life
into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw
transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity
of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul
and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as
God Himself.
Never.
Themes
The struggle to
maintain faith:
In the beginning Elie’s faith is
absolute.
His faith is shaken by the
cruelty and evil he witnesses.
Begins to feel that if the
world is so disgusting and
cruel then God must either be
disgusting and cruel or not
exist at all.
The fact that he is questions
reflects his inherent
commitment to God.
Although he is forever
changed Elizer emerges with
his faith intact.
Themes
Silence
•Silence of God: how can an all-
knowing, all-powerful God allow
such horror and cruelty occur,
especially to such devout
worshipers?
•The Jews expected to be saved by
an angel as Isaac was when
Abraham was commanded to
sacrifice him.
•God’s silence demonstrates the
absence of divine compassion
•Silence of the victims: overall lack
of resistance to the Nazi threat
•Suggests that passivity and
silence are what allowed the
Holocaust to continue
•Night is an attempt to break the
silence: to tell loudly and boldly the
atrocities of the Holocaust
Themes
Inhumanity towards
other humans
•The revelation of how horrible
people can be to one another
• Incomprehensible aspect of
the Holocaust: how human
beings can so callously
slaughter millions of innocent
victims
•Cruelty breeds cruelty
•The cruelty of the camp turns
prisoners against each other
•Self-preservation became the
highest virtue
Themes
Father-Son Bonds
•The camp and the need to survive
ruptures familial bonds
•Elie discusses instances where
sons sacrifice their fathers in order
to save themselves.
•Despite his love and care for his
father, Elie feels that he has
somehow sacrificed his father for
his own safety.
•Elie demonstrates that his
relationship with his father was
stronger than his instinct for selfpreservation.
+
Elie’s father Chlomo
Elie
Symbols
Fire
•Symbol of the Nazis’
cruel power
•Agent of destruction in
the crematoria
•The wicked who wield
the power of fire use it
to punish the innocent.
Symbols
Night
•Symbolize a world
without God’s presence
•Always occurs when
suffering is the worst
•Presence reflects
Eliezer’s belief that he
lives in a world without
God.
•Elie first arrives at
Birkenau/Auschwitz at
night
•The prisoners begin
their horrible run from
Buna at night
Motifs
Tradition:
•A people without a
country/home—as a result
memory and tradition play a
significant role in Jewish life
•Judaism relies on customs,
observances, and traditions
passed down from generation
to generation as the markers of
cultural identity
•The Holocaust was an attempt
to wipe out this cultural
identity
•Conversation & Storytelling
are important elements of
Jewish folk tradition
•Chlomo’s storytelling
symbolizes Jewish culture as a
whole.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8
gw
Motifs
Religious Observance:
•Memoir begins with many
references to religion and
religious observance
•By the end of the book almost
all mentions of Jewish
observance have vanished
•Jewish tradition and beliefs
indirectly hold the foundation
of the book.
Jewish Ghettos
Before being transported to
concentration camps, Jews
were rounded up and forced to
live in walled off areas of the
city.
Night
Little by little life returned to
“normal.” The barbed wire that
encircled us like a wall did not
fill us with real fear. In fact, we
felt this was not a bad thing; we
were entirely among ourselves.
… People thought this was a
good thing. We would no
longer have to look at all those
hostile faces, endure those
hate-filled stares. No more
fear. No more anguish. We
would live among Jews, among
brothers…
--Night (page 12)
TEMPORARILY OUT OF
THE KRAKOW GHETTO
ON FORCED LABOR
After the morning roll call we were
marched downtown, under heavy guard,
for work. Even under those circumstances
it felt good to be out of the ghetto and
breathe fresh air. At the same time we felt
our deprivation at the sight of the
unchanged world going on around us:
normal people living normal lives. We
passed carefree children playing in the
streets; toddlers led by their mothers,
chatting and giggling, unafraid of sudden,
forced separation. There were
grandmothers pushing their infant
grandchildren's carriages, exuding joy and
anticipation; young people holding hands,
smiling and conversing, facing the future
with confidence. We marched on.
Jewish homes occupied by the Poles.
Jewish businesses taken over by the
Germans. And the Jews themselves,
plundered of their joys, torn from their
families, dressed in tatters, degraded,
hunted, and herded like animals. They
would extract some work from us,
squeeze the last drop of blood from our
veins, and then finally discard the useless
bodies.
Yes, there was still a normal world outside
the ghetto walls. There the Poles,
laughing and jeering, relished the sight of
the ravaged, tattered Jews. "What, are
they still around?" they asked. "Hasn't
Hitler killed them all off?"
MANY DIED OF STARVATION
OR EPIDEMICS

http://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=jhDu_Y1sPiE

Auschwitz:
http://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=v4Y-w2tAya4
http://videos.howstuffworks.co
m/hsw/27412-the-holocaustauschwitz-video.htm





Largest Nazi Concentration Camp
Proportion of deaths among Auschwitz
prisoners was much higher than in other
camps
Included more than 40 satellite camps that
spread over a vast industrial area
 Satellite camps served as a huge pool of prisoner
labor for the German war effort
AUSCHWITZ

BIRKENAU
Holding Camp/Torture
Center

Birkenau
• Receiving
Station
• Death Camp
Auschwitz
Buna
Death Camp
• Holding Camp
• Torture Center
• Work Camp
• Largest of the
Satellite Camps
Birkenau
“Jews faced selection
immediately upon arrival;
those deemed fit to work,
usually a small minority of
those on the transports,
became registered prisoners,
whereas others, including as a
rule all children and the elderly,
went to their death in the gas
chambers.”
--Anatomy of the Auschwitz
Death Camp (Yisrael Gutman
and Michael Berenbaum)
Auschwitz
•Prisoners were tattooed with a
serial number
•They wore striped camp
fatigues with a piece of cloth
attached bearing the prisoner’s
serial number and the symbol
of his/her category
•Red triangle= political prisoner
•Green triangle= ordinary
criminals
•Black triangle =asocials
•Star of David=Jewish
Sighet
Sighet Ghetto
(1&2)
Birkenau
Auschwitz
Buna
Buchenwald
LIberation

As the Third Reich crumbled and the eastern front collapsed, the
Germans began a comprehensive retreat to the West, towards
Germany. SS Chief Himmler ordered his subordinates not to allow
the Allied armies to liberate living prisoners in the concentration
camps—as had happened in Majdanek, where the murders had
been discovered. The evacuation of the inmates of hundreds of
camps in Poland and eastern Prussia westwards, to the Reich,
began in late 1944. In harsh winter weather, as artillery thundered
in the distance, the prisoners were loaded aboard trains or led out
on foot on murderous treks that lasted weeks, if not months. Some
prisoners, those who were too weak to set out, were put to death
in the camps; only a few sick prisoners were left behind. The guards
who were ordered to lead the prisoners understood that these
duties were an obstacle to their own escape from the Red Army;
thus, they were all the more eager to kill the prisoners and get
away. After the war the mass graves of thousands of murdered
evacuees were found along the routes of the death marches. The
order to evacuate the prisoners to the German interior was not
issued in writing; that is, no written order has surfaced. For this
reason, the local initiatives taken by guards and escorts are
especially telling. Scholars suggest that the purpose of the death
marches was twofold: first, they were intended as another way to
continue killing Jews, to the last man and woman. And, second,
until this could be accomplished, the prisoners would be
concentrated temporarily in camps so as to ensure that no
witnesses would be left to testify about the murders and,
meanwhile, to exploit the Jewish labor force until the last possible
moment. In this fashion, the mass murder of the prisoners
continued until the day of surrender. – To Bear Witness
Death Marches
“I was in a terribly bad
condition and the German
guard stood there and watched
us picking food out of the
trash…There was a rotten apple
and we pulled it out and ate
it…he asked me, ‘Why are you
doing this?’ I told him, ‘…Do
me a favor, kill me, kill me.’ He
said, ‘I wasn’t given any such
order.’” –Lea
The Men’s March from
Auschwitz-Birkenau
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/
media_oi.php?ModuleId=10005
162&MediaId=1172

On January 18, 1945, some 3,000 prisoners dressed in
flimsy striped clothing were marched out of Birkenau in
the heavy snow. The marcher alleviated their thirst by
eating snow; they slept out in the open. After covering
59 kilometers on foot, they were placed aboard open
freight cars. Many froze to death on the way. When the
train stopped—possibly because the track had been
damaged in a bombardment—the prisoners continued
on foot. Several hundred men escaped into the forest;
many were shot. During the ten days of the march, the
prisoners received food only four times. After a further
368-kilometer trek, those still alive reached the Gross
Rosen concentration camp. On May 9, the last day of the
war, the few survivors were liberated by the Red Army.
They had covered 498 kilometers in total.
JEWISH MYSTICISM
TALMUD
HASIDIC
KABBALAH
SIGHET
ZOHAR
KADDISH
GESTAPO
ADOLF HITLER
KAPO
ZYKLON B
“SELECTION”
GHETTOS
BIRKENAU
AUSCHWITZ
BUNA
MUSELMANN
BUCHENWALD
SONDERKOMMANDO
KOMMANDO
S. S.
DR. MENGELE
JEWISH COUNCILS
OBERKAPO
YOM KIPPUR
RED ARMY
FASCISM
EINSATZGRUPPEN
ELIE WIESEL