Poem: Holocaust

6 million people, 12 million hands

Strapped together like rubber bands.

6 million people, 12 million eyes,

Mother and children with last goodbyes.

6 million people, 6 million hearts,

Family, lives, and spirits torn apart.

What we’ve lost in the Holocaust

All we can’t forget,

We’ll make the Nazis regret.

I think that this poem shows Elie's reasoning for telling his story.  He does it for all the people who didn't get to say goodbye before their families were ripped apart.   "Mother and children with last goodbyes." Elie didn't even get to tell his mother goodbye.  They were split by gender at Auschwitz and never saw each other again.

http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/holocaust-we-must-never-forget

Fire

The symbol behind fire is seen throughout Night, often used to show the Nazi’s power and cruelty.  The crematoriums that the Nazis used to burn the Jews are mentioned frequently, especially when Elie enters the concentration camp for the first time.  He states “In front of us, those flames. In the air, the smell of burning flesh.  It must have been around midnight.  We had arrived. In Birkenau”( Wiesel 28). On the way towards Auschwitz-Birkenau, a woman named Madame Schächter receives several crazed premonitions of fire and destruction.  These premonitions symbolize the horror of the crematoriums that they would encounter once at the concentration camps.  Form Elie religion point of view the fire might have also connect to a higher power.  Elie grew up studying the Torah and Talmud so the fire may have represented a higher power to him.  Hitler associated himself with the fire so the Jewish people then saw him as a high power.

Pipel Hanging

"But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing..." (Wiesel 65)

http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/krakow/krkw_pix/front/062007_02_b.gif 

It is difficult to imagine what emotions would go through your mind, under the conditions of Auschwitz. It is even more difficult to imagine a child being hung. Elie life at this point is up and down, going good for a while then suddenly getting worse, then  again the situation lightens and then he's cast even more sharply, deeper down in to the depths of Auschwitz.

Father-Son

On three occasions, Elie mentions sons mistreating fathers: in his brief discussion of the pipel who abused his father, his conclusion about the motives of Rabbi Eliahou’s son, and his narration of the fight for food that he witnesses on the train to Buchenwald, in which a son beats his father to death. All of these moments of cruelty are provoked by the conditions the prisoners are forced to endure. In order to save themselves, these sons sacrifice their fathers. Elie depends on his father for support, and his love for his father allows him to endure. During the long run to Gleiwitz, he says, “My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running out of breath, out of strength, desperate. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.” (Wiesel 86) Their relationship demonstrates that Elie’s love is stronger than thoughts of survival.

Work Makes you Free

"But no sooner had we taken a few more steps than we saw the barbed wire of another camp. This one had an iron gate with the overhead inscription: ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Work makes you free." (Wiesel 40)

http://rt.com/files/politics/stolen-auschwitz-sign-found/oswencim.n.jpg

This sign was the irony of Elie arrival in Auschwitz's.  If you worked you died just slower. On the other hand if you didn't work you didn't have to endure the misery of that life and were free forever.

Men, Not Pigs

" "For the liberating army," he told us. "Let them know that here lived men and not pigs."  So we were men after all? The block was cleaned from top to bottom." (Wiesel 84)

http://pictures.polandforall.com/images/auschwitz-birkenau-camp-barracks-interrior.jpg

Elie and his father were forced to stay in barracks similar to the one in the picture.  They were filled to mass capacity.  Some times prisoners were forced to share bunks or to sleep on the floor. 

Loss

This whole book has to do with the loss of things; family, food, personal items, and religion.  Family is the first thing that is lost in the novel and throughout more and more family members are lost.  "I didn't know that this was the place that I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever." (Wiesel 29).  Within this one sentence Elie lost four family members well before he ever should have.  Rabbi Eliahou, a very loved and respected man, had his son abandon him.  All because the son thought the father was thought to be too weak to care for and look after any more.  Religion and faith is another intangible item the Elie Wiesel loses.  He goes from what to learn everything he can about his religion to not wanting anything to do with it.  Elie also lost throughout his experience all of his personal items; home, shoes, and even his gold tooth.  By the end of the book Elie has lost everything and doesn't have a single thing to his name when he is set free.

Crowded Streets

One by one, the houses emptied and the streets filled with people carrying bundles. (Wiesel 16)

http://lifeboat.com/images/jewish.ghetto.jpg

In the days that Sighet was being evacuated the streets would have looked something like this.  Many people crowding into the street to do roll call and be grouped to leave for camps.

Hope

Throughout the book there are many instances of hope.  A main one was when they hoped for was that the liberation would happen before they moved camps again.  The first case of this is people in Sighet announcing and reassuring "The Red Army is Advancing with giant strides... Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to" (Wiesel 8).  Even from the very beginning the Jews were not losing hope.  Eventually some people do start to lose their hope.  Elie learns this when another sick inmate says to him “I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people” (Wiesel 80).  This inmate might have started off as a very believing Jewish person, but after all he has gone through in the camps he has lost all faith and decided the only truthful person in this world, at this time, is Hitler himself.

Introduction

In 1944 life for Elie Wiesel took a drastic turn.  Instead of studying the Talmud like he should have Elie was sent to a concentration camp and into an experience that changed his life forever.  Everyone has heard of the Holocaust, but not all know the full effect and everlasting effect it had.  There were well over 50 concentration camps built and ready by Hitler's demand during World War II.  Some Jewish people went through this entire event in a daze not believing this could happen.  Hope was the only thing that helped some people through this incidence. I have visited the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, it was so powerful to see. The part that stuck with me the most was that the Nazi soldiers would shave the heads of the Jewish victims and keep the hair.  Over 4,000 pounds of hair were found in camps after liberation.  I can't imagine having to go through them cutting mine knowing it was because they were going to kill me.  Elie Wiesel gives a sample though of what might have been going through these peoples’ minds.