“From that moment on, everything happened very quickly. The race towards death had begun.”
In an inexplicable time struck by anti-semitism and war, there existed only two types of people: those who survived and those who died. This harsh truth is demonstrated in Eliezer Wiesel’s novel Night, published by Hill and Wang, 2006. Eliezer recounts his treacherous journey of the events that lead to the imprisonment of his father, himself, and millions of his people. He speaks of feelings felt by those who had the loss of a loved one, the perpetual fear of each impending day, and the numbness felt once pain, and death had become a routine. Eliezer concludes this harrowing memoir with the tragic yet expected loss of his father, and soon the liberation …show more content…
Eliezer not only speaks of the events that had come to inflict himself, but of the others that surrounded him; he spared no detail when recounting the murderous acts that had come to end the lives of six million Jewish lives. Eliezer begins to introduce the dehumanization of the Jews when the Hungarian officers heard Eliezer's community and packed them all onto cattle cars for transport to the concentration camps. Those who had endured the arduous journey received multiple threats from Hungarian officers that guaranteed death if anyone were to refuse to abide by the rules in place . “The next morning we walked toward the station, where a convoy of cattle cars were waiting. The Hungarian police made us climb into the cars, eighty persons in each one. They handed us some bread, a few pails of water. They checked the bars on the windows to make sure they would not come loose. The cars were sealed. One person was placed in charge of every car: if someone managed to escape, that person would be shot...’There are eighty of you in the car,’ the German officer added. ‘If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs.’”(22-24) In my perspective the degrading nature of the German and Hungarians shown in these excerpts instilled fear in the reader giving them an outlook on the severity of the concentration camps. This was a contributing factor when relinquishing the incentive …show more content…
This universal feeling is mostly caused by those who have been separated, and/or witnessed the massacre of friends and loved ones. Ranging from death to the numerous selections that took place, nearly every family that arrived in the concentration camps became separated, it was inevitable. “An SS came toward us wielding a club. He commanded: ‘Men to the left! Women to the right!’ Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother. There was no time to think, and I already felt my father’s hand press against mine: we were alone. In a fraction of a second I could see my mother, my sisters, mover to the right. Tzipora was holding Mother’s hand. I saw them walking farther away; Mother was stroking my sister’s blond hair, as if to protect her. And I walked on with my father, with the men. I didn’t know that this was the moment in time and place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever.’”(29) I felt that Eliezer was able to allow to reader to feel the confusion, heartbreak, and abruptness from this excerpt in the novel; the reader is able to sympathize towards these course of events, and understand the severity of the Holocaust and what it had done to an entire race, physically and
In an inexplicable time struck by anti-semitism and war, there existed only two types of people: those who survived and those who died. This harsh truth is demonstrated in Eliezer Wiesel’s novel Night, published by Hill and Wang, 2006. Eliezer recounts his treacherous journey of the events that lead to the imprisonment of his father, himself, and millions of his people. He speaks of feelings felt by those who had the loss of a loved one, the perpetual fear of each impending day, and the numbness felt once pain, and death had become a routine. Eliezer concludes this harrowing memoir with the tragic yet expected loss of his father, and soon the liberation …show more content…
Eliezer not only speaks of the events that had come to inflict himself, but of the others that surrounded him; he spared no detail when recounting the murderous acts that had come to end the lives of six million Jewish lives. Eliezer begins to introduce the dehumanization of the Jews when the Hungarian officers heard Eliezer's community and packed them all onto cattle cars for transport to the concentration camps. Those who had endured the arduous journey received multiple threats from Hungarian officers that guaranteed death if anyone were to refuse to abide by the rules in place . “The next morning we walked toward the station, where a convoy of cattle cars were waiting. The Hungarian police made us climb into the cars, eighty persons in each one. They handed us some bread, a few pails of water. They checked the bars on the windows to make sure they would not come loose. The cars were sealed. One person was placed in charge of every car: if someone managed to escape, that person would be shot...’There are eighty of you in the car,’ the German officer added. ‘If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs.’”(22-24) In my perspective the degrading nature of the German and Hungarians shown in these excerpts instilled fear in the reader giving them an outlook on the severity of the concentration camps. This was a contributing factor when relinquishing the incentive …show more content…
This universal feeling is mostly caused by those who have been separated, and/or witnessed the massacre of friends and loved ones. Ranging from death to the numerous selections that took place, nearly every family that arrived in the concentration camps became separated, it was inevitable. “An SS came toward us wielding a club. He commanded: ‘Men to the left! Women to the right!’ Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother. There was no time to think, and I already felt my father’s hand press against mine: we were alone. In a fraction of a second I could see my mother, my sisters, mover to the right. Tzipora was holding Mother’s hand. I saw them walking farther away; Mother was stroking my sister’s blond hair, as if to protect her. And I walked on with my father, with the men. I didn’t know that this was the moment in time and place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever.’”(29) I felt that Eliezer was able to allow to reader to feel the confusion, heartbreak, and abruptness from this excerpt in the novel; the reader is able to sympathize towards these course of events, and understand the severity of the Holocaust and what it had done to an entire race, physically and