Night by Elie Wiesel
Name ___________________________
English
Date_____________________________
******************************************************************************************************************
Section 1, pages 3 – 22
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Describe Moishe the Beadle (physically and his mannerisms).
Describe Elie Wiesel's father. What is his occupation?
Why is Moshe the Beadle important to Elie Wiesel?
Under what condition does Wiesel's father allow him to study?
What happens when Wiesel prays? When asked by Moishe, what's his response? Why does Moishe pray?
Summarize the story Moishe the Beadle tells on his return from being deported. Why does he say he
has returned to Sighet?
7. What is public reaction to Moishe's story?
8. As 1943 passes, describe some of the everyday routines of life that distract Wiesel from world political events.
9. By 1944, Wiesel senses political events may start to affect their lives. He asks his father to emigrate to Palestine.
What is his father's response?
10. When the Germans arrive in Sighet, how do they initially treat the Jews? Cite some examples.
11. Identify three denials of reality by Wiesel and the other Jews concerning Hitler and the Germans.
12. Describe, in order, the events that happen from the last day of Passover until Pentecost.
13. How does Wiesel say he feels about the Hungarian police?
14. Who was Maria? What does she suggest to the Wiesel family in the ghetto? What is the response by Wiesel's father?
Sections 2, 3, pages 23 - 46
1. To what does Wiesel compare the world?
a) A blind and deaf person.
b) A large hole in the ground.
c) A cattle wagon hermetically sealed. d) The Bible story of the Jews in slavery in Egypt.
2. What does Madame Schächter see in her vision?
a) She sees large open graves full of children.
b) She sees a fire--a furnace, with huge flames.
c) She sees row after row of empty houses.
d) She sees the face of Hitler laughing at the entire world.
3. What do the Jews in the train car discover when they look out the window?
a) They see several large factories surrounded by barbed wire fences.
b) They see lines of soldiers with truncheons, ready to beat them as they get off.
c) They see flames gushing out of a tall chimney into the sky.
d) They see wagons full of dead bodies.
4. What does Wiesel say about the "travelers' illusions"?
a) They left their illusions in the ghetto in Sighet.
b) They are still clinging to their illusions even though they gave up their possessions.
c) They left their cherished objects and illusions behind on the train.
d) Seeing the German soldiers make them give up their illusions.
5. What is Wiesel's main thought as the men and women are being herded from the train?
a) It is to stay with his father at all costs. b) It is to keep his faith in God.
c) It is to stay alive and healthy.
d) It is to be as brave as possible.
6. Why does the inmate tell Wiesel and his father to lie about their ages?
7. What is Wiesel's first impression of Dr. Mengele?
8. Why is Wiesel amazed when some of the men begin reciting the Kaddish for themselves?
a) They are reciting the prayer incorrectly.
b) The Kaddish is a prayer for the dead.
b) He knows the German guards do not permit Jewish prayers. d) Wiesel knows they are not true believers.
9. True or False: Elie beats up the gypsy who strikes his father.
10. Which of the following IS NOT a first impression of Birkenau for Wiesel?
a) The inmates are given black coffee.
b) The inmates are allowed to take a hot shower.
c) The synagogue is nicer than the one he attended in Sighet.
d) The young Pole in charge of his barrack offers the "first human words" he has heard since the transport.
Section 4, pages 47 – 65
1. What lesson does Wiesel learn when the Kommando’s aide asks to trade a ration of bread and margarine for his
shoes?
2. Why isn’t Louis, a well-known violinist from Holland, allowed to play Beethoven?
3. Describe Wiesel's encounter with the dentist.
4. What are the only things in which Wiesel takes an interest?
5. What does Elie Wiesel do when Idek hit his father? What is he thinking?
6. Who takes Wiesel's gold tooth? Why does Wiesel give it up? What is the end result of this experience?
7. How do Wiesel and the other inmates feel as the factory is being bombed?
8. What happens to the young boy from Warsaw? Why? How does the soup taste this evening?
9. What is a pipel and why are they hated?
10. Describe the incident involving the Oberkapo and his pipel. How does the soup taste this evening? What does Wiesel
actually mean?
Section 5, pages 66 – 84
1. Why does Wiesel not participate in the Rosh Hashanah prayers? What are his feelings towards God?
2. What is Wiesel's decision about fasting on Yom Kippur? Why does he make that decision? Wiesel says
that he feels a great void opening deep inside him. What does he mean?
3. What advice is Wiesel given before the selection?
4. What is Wiesel's "inheritance" from his father? Why is his father giving it to him?
5. For what reasons do the men forget to say the Kaddish for Akiba Drumer?
6. Why is it important that Wiesel heal quickly after his foot surgery?
7. What happens to the patients who stay in the hospital instead of being evacuated?
8. What is the last thing the head of the block orders the men to do before they evacuate? Why?
Sections 6, 7, 8, 9, pages 85-115
1. While running, an “idea” begins to fascinate Wiesel. What is the idea?
A) It is death.
B) It is escape.
C) It is murdering the soldiers.
D) It is finding his mother
2. What does Wiesel realize about Rabbi Eliahou's son just after the evacuation?
A) The son is dead and the Rabbi cannot admit it.
B) The son has been trying to lose his father as the men are all running.
C) The son has escaped and does not take his father.
D) The son betrays his father to get extra bread for himself.
3. As Wiesel and the others are being forced to march in the cold and snow, he says, “We were the masters of nature,
the masters of the world….” What does Wiesel mean by this?
A) They have transcended life because they have been pushed mentally, emotionally and physically beyond
anything else the Nazi’s can do to them.
B) Because they have marched in the cold and snow before, they are able to handle any conditions.
C) Wiesel and the others feel like they are going to die any moment.
D) Due to lack of food and nutrition, Wiesel is hallucinating that he is the master of the world.
4. Before Juliek dies, what does he do and why?
5. Leaving Gleiwitz and boarding a train, what do the men have to do when the train makes periodic stops?
6. What happens when a crowd of workmen toss bread into the railcar?
A) The snowbirds fly down and snatch the bread before the inmates can get to the pieces of bread.
B) The inmates claw and fight each other to the death to get a piece of bread.
C) The SS guards shoot the workmen for feeding the inmates without their permission.
D) The inmates are too tired and weak to retrieve a piece of bread.
7. What is understated about the story in number six?
A) Wiesel is tired of eating bread and eats snow instead. B) In retrospect, Wiesel thinks the story is humorous.
C) Wiesel is sixteen years old.
D) Wiesel emphatically states his disgust for the workmen and the SS.
8. Why is it ironic that Meir Katz dies?
A) He is a favorite of the Kapos.
B) He once was very big and strong but now he has given up.
C) He is not really Jewish
D) His son is waiting for him at Buchenwald.
9. How many men start out in the train? How many are left when they arrived at Buchenwald?
A) Ten thousand men start out. Five hundred are left. B) Three hundred start out. Fifty are left.
C) Four thousand start out. Two thousand are left. D) One hundred men start out. About twelve are left.
10. What happens to Mr. Wiesel, Elie's father?
A) He gets sick from dysentery, but he recovers.
B) He finally stands up to Idek and punches him after the American troops arrive.
C) He dies from dysentery during the night, and his body is gone by morning.
D) He is shot trying to escape from one of the train stops.
11. While in Buchenwald, what is Wiesel's only desire?
A) He wants to eat.
B) He wants to sleep.
C) He wants to find out if his mother and sisters were alive.
D) He wants to take a bath.
12. A few days after being liberated and surviving, what is ironic about Wiesel’s freedom?
A) He seeks revenge against the guards that beat him and his father.
B) He travels back to Sighet on a train.
C) He stays in Germany with the other survivors to start legal charges against the Nazis.
D) He spends two weeks in a hospital and almost dies from some form of poisoning.