Connection #4 (Night)

In the novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, Elie depicts his first-hand account of World War II from his Jewish perspective. Elie and his family lived in the small Jewish town of Sighet in Transylvania. When Elie was a teenager, his family was informed by German officials that they were to move into a centralized “ghetto” with other Jewish families. At first, Elie and his family did not make much out of the move – the German official was nice and they would now be closer to their friends and extended family. This was their mistake, however. In fact, it was the entire Jewish communities’ mistake. It was this small moment that would turn out to be the Weisel family’s only opportunity to escape. As WWII progressed and Adolph Hitler began to expand his new regime throughout the vast expanses of Europe, life for Elie and his family and the rest of the Jewish community turned for the worse. Without truly knowing what the future held for them, from within the small Jewish ghetto that housed Elie, he and his family boarded a train that was headed for a Nazi concentration camp. Elie and his father were separated from his mother and sisters. He would later find out that he would never see them again. Elie and his father traveled all over Europe, staying in both the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. They were treated horribly by the Nazi officials, being forced to do manual labor, subjected to medical tests, and faced with malnutrition. Elie lost all faith in his God during these times. He even considered taking his own life to escape the misery he felt on a daily basis. The only thing that kept him from giving up was his father. Towards the end of WWII (which was unknown to the Jewish people in the concentration camps), Elie’s father died from over-exhaustion and lack of food and water. Elie lost all hope when his father passed. However, within days after the tragedy, the Americans liberated the Jewish prisoners from the Nazi concentration camps and Elie was once again given freedom. The connection to the culminating question……