Night: A Memoir by Elie Wiesel (2nd post)

As I read more of Night, it just keeps getting more and more interesting and very sad too, especially with the descriptive words Wiezer uses. Not only is his choice of words effective, but also his use of imagery. The imagery used really show you what it was like in those camps. The way they were treated was terrible. It seemed as though the Nazis caused the Jews to act as if they were less than human. One moment that really created a chilling, frightening image was reading the part where the prisoners are moving through Birkenau, and they are horrified to see a huge pit where babies are being burned, and there’s another for adults. That moment in that section of the book seemed so unimaginable and unreal. All these images and moments that occur in the story like the burning of babies, Wiezer's confrontation with Madame Schächter, who is a supposedly crazy middle-aged women, etc are what make the story all the more terrifying. Another moment in the book that really stood out to me was when Wiezer's looks back on his first night in Birkenau and describes not only what he felt at the time but also the lasting impact of that night:
“Never shall I forget that night . . . which has turned my life into one long night . . . .
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. . . . Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” (Weisel 46)
The repetition of the phrase “Never shall I forget” illustrates how Wiezer's experiences are forever burned into his mind; like the actual experiences, the memories of them are inescapable.

In this section, we also see sort of a character change in Elie. It’s like he doesn’t see himself as a kid anymore: "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." (Weisel 32) Elie feels that the child in him has died; he is no longer the young, studious boy he once was. Since he’s been in the camp, he not only looses his childhood, but he also begins to loose his faith in God. When he first sees the furnace pits in which the Nazis are burning babies, he experiences the beginnings of doubt: “Why should I bless His name?” Eliezer asks, “What had I to thank Him for?” (Weisel 43)

When reading this book, you can’t help but feel sorry for how much these Jews that had to suffer during the Holocaust. The living conditions, the work they had to do, was just horrible. It’s just really good to hear that there were Jews that had actually survived the Holocaust.