In order to survive in difficult situations one must give up their compassion for others, and revert back to their primal instincts. The book Night is about a boy how went through the Holocaust, it does an awesome job at showing how people lose compassion for others. As shown in the book many victims were willing to give up their compassion to do anything that would keep them alive. Some were even willing to kill, most didn’t want to kill they would just harm others, and even then some reverted to less violent methods like lying and stealing.
Almost every Jew during the Holocaust witnessed the death of someone, and the majority of Jews inadvertently killed someone just to stay alive. One quote summed this up perfectly, “And the spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread” (101). This is describing a scene when Elie is on a train and spectators are throwing bread on the train, and Jews are fighting and killing over the pieces. This shows just how willing they were to throw away their compassion just so they could survive. “Here is one! Take …show more content…
Most Jews were only willing to bring harm upon someone else. For instance, on the train ride to Auschwitz the men only beat Mrs. Schacter, they didn’t kill her. “She received several blows to the head, blows that could have been lethal” (26). So in a way they didn’t lose all compassion for her, but if they weren’t in that difficult situation they might have helped her instead of beating her. Another great example is when the men beat up Elie’s dad. “They could not stand my fatherany longer, they said, because he no longer was able to drag himself outside to relieve himself.” (109). This goes along the same lines as the previous example, in that if they weren’t in that difficult situation they may have helped him and not have beaten him; but they stopped caring because of how annoying he was and the difficult scenario that they were
Almost every Jew during the Holocaust witnessed the death of someone, and the majority of Jews inadvertently killed someone just to stay alive. One quote summed this up perfectly, “And the spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread” (101). This is describing a scene when Elie is on a train and spectators are throwing bread on the train, and Jews are fighting and killing over the pieces. This shows just how willing they were to throw away their compassion just so they could survive. “Here is one! Take …show more content…
Most Jews were only willing to bring harm upon someone else. For instance, on the train ride to Auschwitz the men only beat Mrs. Schacter, they didn’t kill her. “She received several blows to the head, blows that could have been lethal” (26). So in a way they didn’t lose all compassion for her, but if they weren’t in that difficult situation they might have helped her instead of beating her. Another great example is when the men beat up Elie’s dad. “They could not stand my fatherany longer, they said, because he no longer was able to drag himself outside to relieve himself.” (109). This goes along the same lines as the previous example, in that if they weren’t in that difficult situation they may have helped him and not have beaten him; but they stopped caring because of how annoying he was and the difficult scenario that they were