Elie Wiesel's Crumbling Truths About Faith And Suffering

Elie Wiesel’s Crumbling Truths About Faith and Suffering Elie Wiesel once said, “There are victories of soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.” In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie and his family were taken from their home in Sighet, Transylvania and sent to death factories, such as Auschwitz and Buna, where he recalls the death of his family and the death of innocent ones who had no reason to die during the Holocaust. Through this, Elie was made stronger, but he was also weakened by some of the horrific memories he went through. Elie became aware that human suffering was real and his faith was weakened in those concentration camps. Early on in the book just after Elie had arrived at Auschwitz, he was in denial that people were …show more content…
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence… Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. (page 34)
“Never shall I… Never shall I… Never shall I…” Elie kept repeating. These scenes have always been repeating in his mind because this was the first time that he had actually seen something extremely tragic. At the concentration camps, death had become a reality, a part of everyday life, and Elie had never really experienced death before. All the smoke and flames and silence during that first night opened his eyes to how cruel the world, and people in the world, could be. Another way that Elie changed in this book is the fact that his faith was weakened. In the beginning, Elie was extremely strong in his faith by studying Kabbalah and talking about God and his faith with Moishe the Beadle. As he went through these horrific scenes of death and torture at the camps, Elie started questioning God about His existence and why He would let something so tragic happen. Elie thought: Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because