The Holocaust was a ghastly event that caused the mass genocide of the Jewish population under the Nazi Regime. The Nazis put the Jewish people into camps with abhorrent and gruesome living conditions, some of which seem to be places of inhospitality. Many died from acts of violence, starvation, illness, and many other horrors. The sights of rotting corpses, hanging bodies, and the malnourished is more than enough to leave a mental scar. The survivors of these concentration camps show that the physical pain did not stick with them, but it was the mental trauma that scarred their minds. Night, a memoir written by Eliezer Wiesel, shows the thoughts and experiences of a prisoner’s own account at camps like these. When the Germans took Elie and
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Because of the strenuous conditions he was forced to endure, he changes as a person. Because the severe conditions in the concentration camps altered many prisoners’ morals, it led to apathy which shows through their insensitivity to death, desperate actions, and loss of faith.
The prisoners in the concentration camps were surrounded by death, from the death of their neighbors and loved ones, to death staring them straight in the eyes. Prisoners gradually became more insensitive of the deceased as the bodies of the dead piled up day by day. Elie Wiesel at first, was traumatized at the sight of the burning Jews at the crematorium. It was unbelievable to Elie that God would allow such horrible acts to occur, and as time progressed he became used to it deforming his morals. Moral deformity is where one’s standards of behavior is changed …show more content…
Atheism took its place in many Jewish lives, where all hope on their faith died out. If God was truly almighty, he would have been able to stop all these atrocities. Numerous amounts of Jewish people showed apathy towards their religion after they realised this fact. Elie’s act of defiance against his God was on the day of Yom Kippur, where people fast in The Day of Atonement. He convinced himself that there was no more reason to fast, he can no longer accept the silence God has brought. He drank his soup ration as an act of rebellion against God. “And I nibbled on my crust of bread. Deep inside me, I felt a great void opening” (Wiesel 69). Furthermore, a survivor named Alex Hershaft witnessed people affected by death, disease, and starvation. He remembers vividly typhus affecting affecting his family and many others in the camp. “Every morning when you went out on the street there were corpses on the street of people who had been dumped, who had died the night before”(Hershaft 16). After Alex had survived the camps, he abandoned his belief in God and now identified himself as an atheist. He witnessed all of these horrors as a young child, this had affected the way he has matured in life. Although some Jewish people stuck to their faith, many left due to the decreased morale and the horrors they
Because of the strenuous conditions he was forced to endure, he changes as a person. Because the severe conditions in the concentration camps altered many prisoners’ morals, it led to apathy which shows through their insensitivity to death, desperate actions, and loss of faith.
The prisoners in the concentration camps were surrounded by death, from the death of their neighbors and loved ones, to death staring them straight in the eyes. Prisoners gradually became more insensitive of the deceased as the bodies of the dead piled up day by day. Elie Wiesel at first, was traumatized at the sight of the burning Jews at the crematorium. It was unbelievable to Elie that God would allow such horrible acts to occur, and as time progressed he became used to it deforming his morals. Moral deformity is where one’s standards of behavior is changed …show more content…
Atheism took its place in many Jewish lives, where all hope on their faith died out. If God was truly almighty, he would have been able to stop all these atrocities. Numerous amounts of Jewish people showed apathy towards their religion after they realised this fact. Elie’s act of defiance against his God was on the day of Yom Kippur, where people fast in The Day of Atonement. He convinced himself that there was no more reason to fast, he can no longer accept the silence God has brought. He drank his soup ration as an act of rebellion against God. “And I nibbled on my crust of bread. Deep inside me, I felt a great void opening” (Wiesel 69). Furthermore, a survivor named Alex Hershaft witnessed people affected by death, disease, and starvation. He remembers vividly typhus affecting affecting his family and many others in the camp. “Every morning when you went out on the street there were corpses on the street of people who had been dumped, who had died the night before”(Hershaft 16). After Alex had survived the camps, he abandoned his belief in God and now identified himself as an atheist. He witnessed all of these horrors as a young child, this had affected the way he has matured in life. Although some Jewish people stuck to their faith, many left due to the decreased morale and the horrors they