Chapter 1
1. Describe Moishe the Beadle?
2. How old is Elie when the story begins?
3. How is he different from teens in the modern age?
4. How does his religion shape Elie?
5. What connection do Moishe the Beadle and Elie have?
6. When all the foreign Jews were expelled from Sighet what was the initial
reaction?
7. When Moishe the Beadle returns what story does he relate? How do people
react?
8. What is the Jews initial reaction to the German soldiers?
9. What edicts did the Germans place upon the Jewish community?
10. Describe the Ghettos.
11.
Describe the expulsion from the ghettos.
12. What does Maria, the former maid, offer to the Wiesel family? Do they accept?
Chapter 2
1. What were the conditions in the cattle car like?
2. What does this quote mean, “Our eyes opened. Too late.”
3. Describe Mrs. Schachter. What does she keep seeing/screaming?
4. What do the other passengers do with this information?
5. Why do you think they react this way?
6. When the train arrives in _______________________ what do the passengers see?
7. Mrs. Schachter’s screaming from before can now be viewed as what literary
element?
Chapter 3
1. What two things did the passengers have to leave behind in the train. Which do
you think was probably more valuable?
2. What were the eight simple, short words that changed Elie’s life forever?
3. How do Elie and his father save their lives at the initial selection?
4. Why do the young men with knives decide not to revolt?
5. What horrific site does Elie encounter being thrown in the burning ditch?
6. Explain the enormity of this quote, “When had we left our homes? And the
ghetto? And the train? Only a week ago? One night? One single night?”
7. Why does Elie thank god for mud?
8. What choice does the SS officer give to the men?
9. Why doesn’t Elie defend his father when he is beaten for asking where the toilets
are?
10.
What doe ARBEIT MACHT FREI translate to?
11.
What were the first human words that Elie hears since being transported?
12.
What is Elie’s new name?
13.
What lie does Elie tell Stein? Why does he lie?
14.
Why does Akiba Drummer say all this horror is happening to them?
15.
What new camp is Elie sent to?
Chapter 4
1. What deal does Elie strike so he can remain with his father?
2. What job does Elie get? Does he enjoy the work?
3. Describe Elie’s interaction with the dentist. What happens to that dentist?
4. Why does Elie feel anger towards his father?
5. Who takes Elie’s crown? Was it worth it?
6. Why is Elie beaten?
7. Why is an inmate shot during a raid?
8. How is the young pipel described? What happens to him?
9. Why does Elie think the soup tasted of corpses that night?
Chapter 5
1. Describe Elie’s struggle with his religion?
2. How is this a drastic departure from the start of the novel?
3. Why didn’t Elie fast during Yom Kippur?
4. What is selection intended to find?
5. Who are Tibi and Yossi?
6. What does Elie think could have saved Akiba Drumer?
7. What promise do Elie and the men break to Drumer?
8. What illness befalls Elie?
9. Elie and his father have to make a choice to leave the infirmary or stay. What do
they choose? Looking back would they have made the same choice?
10. What was Elie’s “inheritance” from his father? Why was his father giving it to
him?
Chapter 6
1. What happened to anyone who could not keep up with the march?
2. How did Zalman die?
3. What horrible realization did Elie come to concerning Rabbi Eliahou and his son?
How did Elie respond to this?
4. What was Juliek’s last act?
5. How did Elie help his father when the selection was made?
Chapter 7
1. How did Elie again help his father when they were on the train?
2. Describe the scene Elie witnessed between the father and son.
3. How does this make Elie feel?
4. How many got out of the wagon? Where had they arrived?
5. What happens when a worker throws a piece of bread into the wagon?
6. What similar spectacle does Elie witness years later?
7. What happens to Elie on the third night of their journey in the train?
Chapter 8
1. Explain how the father/son roles had been reversed in the case of Elie and his
father?
2. Why was Elie’s father being beaten?
3. What did Elie think of the advice given to him by the head of the block?
4. What happened on January 29, 1945?
5. Why does Elie not weep?
Chapter 9
1. Why does Elie not describe the next four months of his life?
2. What occurred on April 5, 1945?
3. What did the prisoners do when they were freed?
4. What did Elie dream of after freedom?
5. When Elie looks at himself in the mirror at the end of the book what does he see?
6. Why has that look never left him?