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NIGHT
Elie Wiesel
WITH RELATED READINGS
THE EMC MASTERPIECE SERIES
Access Editions
EMC/Paradigm Publishing
St. Paul, Minnesota
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Staff Credits
Laurie Skiba
Managing Editor
Jennifer Wreisner
Senior Designer
Brenda Owens
High School Editor
Paul Spencer
Art and Photo Researcher
Nichola Torbett
Associate Editor
Valerie Murphy
Editorial Assistant
Rebecca Palmer
Associate Editor
Marie Couillard
Copy Editor
Jennifer Anderson
Assistant Editor
Parkwood Composition
Compositor
Lori Coleman
Editorial Consultant
NIGHT by Elie Wiesel, translated by Stella Rodway.
Copyright © 1960 by MacGibbon & Kee.
Copyright renewed © 1988 by The Collins Publishing Group.
Reprinted by permission of Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, LLC.
Acknowledgments are continued on page 152.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wiesel, Elie, 1928Night : with related readings / Elie Wiesel.
p. cm. — (EMC masterpiece series access editions)
Originally published in Yiddish in a more expanded version under the
title: Un di velt hot geshvign.
Summary: An autobiographical narrative in which the author describes his
experiences in Nazi concentration camps, watching family and friends die,
and how these experiences led him to believe that God is dead.
ISBN 0-8219-2418-4
1. Wiesel, Elie, 1928—-Childhood and youth. 2. Jews—Romania—Sighet—
Biography. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)—Romania—Sighet—Personal
narratives. 4. Children in the Holocaust—Biography. [1. Wiesel, Elie, 19282. Jews—Biography. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) 4. Holocaust survivors.] I. Wiesel, Elie, 1928- Velt hot geshvign. II. Title. III. Series.
DS135.R73 W547 2002
940.53’18’092—dc21
2002023009
ISBN 0-8219-2418-4
Copyright © 2003 by EMC Corporation
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be adapted, reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without permission from the publisher.
Published by EMC/Paradigm Publishing
875 Montreal Way
St. Paul, Minnesota 55102
800-328-1452
www.emcp.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Printed in the United States of America.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 xxx 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
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Table of Contents
About the Cover Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
The Life and Works of Elie Wiesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Time Line of Wiesel’s Life and Works
with Related Historical Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
The Historical Context of Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Characters in Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
Echoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii
Images of the Holocaust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx
Foreword by François Mauriac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix
Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Respond to the Selection, Chapters 1–2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Respond to the Selection, Chapters 3–4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chapter 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Chapter 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Chapter 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Chapter 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Respond to the Selection, Chapters 5–9 . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Plot Analysis of Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Related Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
New York Times Holocaust Coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
from MAUS: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman . . . . 116
“Death Fugue” by Paul Celan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
“Chorus of the Rescued” by Nelly Sachs . . . . . . . . . . 121
“My Sorrow” by Isabella Leitner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
“Anti-Nazi Movement Still Inspires: Germans recall
rare courage of ‘White Rose’” by Bob Keeler . . . . . 125
“The Perils of Indifference” by Elie Wiesel . . . . . . . . 130
Creative Writing Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Critical Writing Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Handbook of Literary Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
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ABOUT THE
Cover Image
City of Jews from Triptych, 1978. Oil painting by Samuel Bak.
Courtesy of Pucker Gallery, Boston, MA.
Art Note
Samuel Bak, whose painting appears on the cover of this
book, was born in 1933 in Vilna, Poland. When the Nazis
occupied Poland in 1940, Bak and his family were confined
in the Jewish ghetto of Vilna. His father and all of his grandparents were among the 70,000 Jews who were shot in the
mass executions in the Ponari Forest. Samuel Bak and his
mother were sent to a labor camp, from which they escaped
and went into hiding until the end of the war. They were the
only survivors of his family. Today, Bak lives in Boston,
where he has a successful career as a painter.
Samuel Bak’s paintings are about the Holocaust even
when they do not specifically depict it. His landscapes are
often depopulated, just as entire towns and millions of people were erased by the Nazis. In the painting on the cover,
City of Jews, a chimney brings to mind the crematoria of
Auschwitz, where victims of the gas chambers were burned.
The cracked tablets of the Ten Commandments teeter over
the decaying buildings: the laws are literally broken and are
about to fall on the “city of Jews.”
Critical Viewing
1. How would you describe the mood of City of Jews?
2. Why do you think Bak painted the Ten Commandments
tablets with a crack in them? What might this symbolize?
3. Some viewers have seen a broken Star of David in this
painting. Can you find it? What do you think the
broken star symbolizes?
4. What parallels do you see between Elie Wiesel’s memoir
and Samuel Bak’s painting? Do you see similarities in
the mood evoked by each? In their uses of symbolism?
In the theme each work explores?
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THE LIFE AND WORKS OF
Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel (pronounced e´lē vē zel´) is known worldwide
as one of the most notable human rights advocates of the
twentieth century. In more than forty books and countless
newspaper stories, magazine articles, interviews, and lectures, Wiesel has borne witness to the atrocities of the
Holocaust, spoken out against the oppression of Jews
throughout the world, and advocated for the rights of
Mesquite Indians in Nicaragua, refugees from Cambodia, victims of famine and apartheid in Africa, and war victims
worldwide. The roots of this commitment run deep into his
own life experiences.
Born in 1928, Wiesel grew up as part of a thriving Jewish
community in Sighet, a village that belonged to Hungary in
the early 1940s but is now a part of Romania. As a boy,
Wiesel was fascinated by religious ideas. He was especially
interested in the cabbala—a mystical tradition in which the
world is believed to be a manifestation of the divine—and
Hasidic tales, or teaching stories. Throughout much of his
childhood, he was immersed in religious study.
In 1944, German troops arrived in Sighet and forcibly
moved all the Jews of the village, including the Wiesels, into
two ghettos, which they were not permitted to leave. A few
months later, Elie and his family were deported to
Auschwitz. He was fifteen years old, and he would never see
his mother or youngest sister again. Wiesel survived stays in
five different concentration camps and was finally freed on
April 11, 1945. Night tells the harrowing story of his life during this time.
After the liberation, sixteen-year-old Wiesel vowed not to
write of his experiences for ten years, until he had achieved
enough critical distance from them that he could understand
them better:
Elie Wiesel
So heavy was my anguish that I made a vow: not to speak,
not to touch upon the essential for at least ten years. Long
enough to see clearly. Long enough to learn to listen to
the voices crying inside my own. Long enough to regain
possession of my memory. Long enough to unite the language of man with the silence of the dead.
Wiesel lived briefly in an orphanage in France before
studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and beginning work as a
journalist. During this time, he met François Mauriac, who
THE LIFE AND WORKS OF ELIE WIESEL
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convinced Wiesel to break his vow of silence. In 1955, Wiesel
wrote his first book, And the World Kept Silent, a 900-page
account of his memories. From this volume, he then culled
the much shorter account that became Night. The book was
not an immediate success. Readers seemed not to want to
hear about the camps. While the book continues to disturb
its readers, it is now recognized as one of the most important
firsthand accounts of the Holocaust ever written.
The publication of Night, along with Wiesel’s journalistic
assignments, launched his literary career. Since then, he has
written novels, collections of personal and theological
essays, plays, and memoirs. His writings return again and
again to themes of humanity’s potential for good and evil,
God’s role in world events, hope in the face of despair, and
the interplay between memory and loss.
These same themes inform Wiesel’s political work. In
1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed Wiesel to chair the
President’s Commission on the Holocaust, the committee
charged with creating a United States Holocaust Memorial.
The mission of this memorial was to ensure that Americans
carried forth the memory of the Holocaust and committed
themselves to preventing anything like it from happening
again. This memorial grew into what is now the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
Wiesel has also created the Elie Wiesel Foundation for
Humanity, an organization that strives to draw attention to
ethical breaches around the world and to create forums for
the discussion of pressing international human rights issues.
For this commitment to human rights, Wiesel has won
many awards, including a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the
Nobel Peace Prize, and honorary degrees from universities
around the world.
A partial list of Wiesel’s works includes:
Night
Dawn
Twilight
The Accident
The Town Beyond the Wall
Zalmen, or the Madness of God
The Gates of the Forest
The Oath
The Fifth Son
One Generation After
All Rivers Run to the Sea
And the Sea is Never Full
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Time Line of Elie Wiesel’s Life and Works
with Related Historical Events
➢ = Historical events
➢ Adolf Hitler writes Mein Kampf, outlining many of the ideas he will
implement as ruler of Germany. The publication gains little attention
and no international concern.
1924
Eliezer Wiesel is born on September 30 in Sighet, Transylvania, which is
now a part of Romania.
1928
➢ The National Socialist (Nazi) party becomes the second largest political party in Germany.
1930
➢ The Nazi party doubles its seats in the German parliament.
1932
➢ Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. In February, Hitler
pushes through Article 48, an emergency article granting him the right
to suspend civil rights and arrest all “suspicious persons.” Thousands of
political dissenters and Jews are arrested and imprisoned, the non-Nazi
press is outlawed, and many books are burned. Dachau is opened and
becomes the first concentration camp. Hitler declares a one-day boycott
of all Jewish businesses to take place on April 1. In October, Hitler dissolves the German parliament.
1933
➢ German president Paul von Hindenburg dies, and Hitler declares himself President and Chancellor of the Third Reich and Commander-inChief of the military.
1934
➢ The Nuremburg Laws redefine German Jews as non-citizens, prohibit
Jews from political participation, and force Jewish doctors to give up
their practices.
1935
➢ German Jews are prohibited from obtaining passports and leaving the
country.
1937
➢ Germany invades and takes over Austria. Jews are required to carry
identification cards. November 9, known as Kristallnacht, or “the Night
of Broken Glass,” brings the burning of synagogues, vandalism of Jewish
businesses, and the killing of nearly 100 Jews; Jews themselves are held
responsible for the destruction and forced to pay reparations. In the following weeks, people of Jewish descent are banned from schools, universities, and entertainment venues. Meanwhile, thirty-two countries,
including the United States, meet at the Evian Conference to discuss the
problem of Jewish refugees trying to escape Germany. Few countries are
willing to accept them.
1938
➢ Germany conquers Czechoslovakia. On September 1, Germany invades
Poland, and World War II begins. Jews throughout German-ruled territory
are required to wear the gold Star of David.
1939
➢ Germany conquers Holland and Belgium, and the Warsaw Ghetto is
established. Massive deportations transport Jews to concentration camps.
1940
➢ Hitler invades Russia on June 30. Jews are prohibited from leaving
their neighborhoods. On December 7, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, and
on December 8, the U.S. enters World War II. Jews are prohibited from
using public transportation, keeping pets, and owning typewriters,
appliances, or fur or wool clothing. Chelmno, the first extermination
camp, begins operation.
1941
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Wiesel’s friend and spiritual teacher Moshe is deported. Several months
later, he returns to tell how the Gestapo forced him and his fellow travelers to dig a giant grave, then methodically killed them. Wiesel’s
teacher escaped because he was wounded in the leg and left for dead.
➢ At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, the Nazi party formulates “The
Final Solution,” a plan to exterminate all Jews in Europe. Deportations
to concentration camps increase. The other five death camps, including
Auschwitz, begin operation. In the United States, 110,000 Japanese
Americans are relocated to internment camps.
1943
Jews in Wiesel’s community can’t bring themselves to believe the reports
they hear of Jews being murdered by the Germans. They cling stubbornly to hope.
➢ Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto stage an uprising. The uprising is crushed,
and residents are deported to death camps. Allies meet at the Bermuda
Conference to address the plight of Jewish refugees, but the United States’
restrictive immigration policies prevent acceptance of the refugees.
1944
German troops arrive in Wiesel’s village. Crammed into an overcrowded
train car and deprived of food and water, the Wiesel family is transported,
along with the rest of the Sighet Jewish community, to Birkenau. Upon
arrival, Elie and his father are separated from Elie’s mother and three sisters, forced to observe the burning of human bodies in huge ditches, and
subjected to a series of demeaning treatments. The two manage to stay
together through a transfer to Auschwitz and then to Buna.
➢ Hungarian Jews are deported to Auschwitz. On July 24 alone, 46,000
are murdered.
1945
Elie and his father endure a march from Buna to Gleiwitz, and a days-long
trip in an open cattle car through Germany to Buchenwald. Shortly after
their arrival, Elie’s father dies. On April 11, the Jewish Resistance rises up
and takes over Buchenwald. American armed forces arrive the same day to
liberate the camp. Wiesel goes to France to live in an orphanage.
➢ In January, Soviet troops liberate Warsaw and Auschwitz. Hitler commits suicide on April 30, and Germany surrenders on May 7. On August 6
and 9, the United States drops newly developed atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people. Japan surrenders on August 15, ending World War II. The Nuremburg Trials begin on
November 22.
1946
Wiesel is reunited with his two older sisters, the only other members of
the family to survive the camps.
➢ High-ranking members of the Nazi party are tried for crimes against
humanity at the Nuremburg Trials.
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1948
After moving to Paris, Wiesel begins studying at the prestigious university, the Sorbonne.
1949
Wiesel becomes a journalist for the French newspaper L’arche.
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Encouraged by Nobel Laureate François Mauriac, Wiesel sets down his
memories of the Holocaust in Yiddish in an 862-page work called And
the World Kept Silent. He then dramatically condenses these memories
into the 178-page Night.
1955
A serious car accident in New York City while on a journalistic assignment confines Wiesel to a wheelchair for a year.
1956
La Nuit, the original version of Night, is published in France.
1958
Night is published for the first time in English.
1960
The novel Dawn is published.
1961
The novel The Accident is published. This novel is later renamed Day and
included with Night and Dawn as part of The Night Trilogy.
1962
Wiesel applies for and obtains United States’ citizenship.
1963
Wiesel travels to the Soviet Union to investigate the persecution of Jews
there. He publishes his findings in The Jews of Silence.
1965
In A Beggar in Jerusalem, Wiesel writes about the Six Day War between
Israel on one side and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria on the other.
1968
Wiesel marries Marion Erster Rose, who is also a survivor of the concentration camps.
1969
The Oath, a novel about a boy who becomes the sole survivor of his community, is published.
1973
Wiesel is named the Andrew Mellon Professor of Humanities at Boston
University.
1976
In honor of his Holocaust writings, Wiesel is appointed by President
Jimmy Carter to head the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. He
remains chairman of this council until 1986. A Jew Today, a collection of
essays on moral, religious, and political issues, is published.
1978
Wiesel is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Fifth Son, a
prize-winning novel exploring good and evil, is published.
1985
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Wiesel.
1986
The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity is established. The Foundation’s
mission is to protect human rights and combat intolerance by providing
international forums to discuss ethical issues.
1987
Wiesel visits war-torn Bosnia and Serbia.
1992
All Rivers Run to the Sea, Wiesel’s memoirs through the year 1968, is
published.
1995
And the Sea is Never Full, covering Wiesel’s memories from 1969 through
the nineties, is published.
1999
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THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF
Night
Elie Wiesel’s Night chronicles one boy’s actual experience
of what is perhaps the darkest period of modern history.
From 1933 to 1945, European Jews and other minorities were
persecuted and systematically killed. This dark period is now
known as the Holocaust.
The story of the Holocaust is often told in large and horrifying numbers: 365 Jewish ghettos in six countries; six
extermination camps in Poland; six million Jews murdered;
five million others targeted and killed; nearly 400,000 handicapped individuals sterilized.
While the numbers alone are staggering, Night makes this
mind-boggling catastrophe personal. It forces readers to see
through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old boy living through
atrocity and to ask whether such darkness could fall again.
Darkness Gathers: The Nazi Party Seizes Power
World War I left Germany reeling economically, politically, and socially. Many Germans objected to the Treaty of
Versailles, which ended World War I by assigning guilt for
the war to Germany and demanding that Germany pay large
sums of money to the Allies. Various political parties fought
for control of the country. Unemployment was high, and
inflation ran rampant. Out of this post-war chaos emerged a
weak democratic government called the Weimar Republic.
While the Weimar Republic restored a fragile order, it could
not effectively address the widespread social, economic, and
political problems plaguing the country. The worldwide economic collapse of 1929 created a crisis in the government.
Into this chaos stepped Adolf Hitler and his National
Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) party. Hitler had a dynamic
personality and was a powerful, charismatic speaker. He set
forth an inspiring vision of a powerful, proud German
nation. Playing on the patriotism of the German people and
their sense of wounded pride after the Treaty of Versailles,
Hitler gained a large following. By 1932, the Nazi party held
the majority of seats in the Reichstag, or German parliament.
In 1933, in an effort to control Hitler by appeasing his followers, German president Hindenburg appointed him chancellor. Shortly thereafter, Hitler pushed through an emergency
article granting him the right to suspend civil rights and arrest
all “suspicious persons” that he deemed to be threats to the
Nazi-controlled government. The first concentration camps,
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including Dachau, were opened to house such political prisoners. Over time, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, and clergy members who opposed Nazi policies
would be imprisoned in these camps.
Hitler also outlawed non-Nazi newspapers. Books and art
that didn’t support his ideas were burned. As a result, the
Nazis controlled the information to which people had
access. Then Hitler dissolved the Reichstag. When
Hindenburg died in office, Hitler abolished the German presidency. His power was now unchecked.
Hitler immediately declared himself the Führer, or leader,
of what he called the Third Reich. Hitler’s Third Reich referred
not only to the country then known as Germany, but to the
German empire he planned to create by conquering surrounding countries. Austria fell to the Germans in 1938, and
Czechoslovakia followed in 1939. On September 1, 1939,
World War II began as Germany invaded Poland.
Hitler’s Vision: The Aryan Race
Not only did Hitler set forth an inspiring image of a
strong, far-reaching German empire called the Third Reich,
but he advocated the purification of what he called the
“Aryan race.” The Aryan race, according to Hitler, consisted
of a physically, mentally, and morally superior group of people descended from ancient warriors and characterized by
blond hair and blue eyes, among other features. Hitler’s
vision was of a vast empire ruled and populated by Aryan
people. In order to accomplish this vision, he would need to
eliminate anyone who did not conform to the Aryan ideal;
targets for elimination included Jews, Roma (sometimes
known as “Gypsies”), Slavs, homosexuals, and persons with
disabilities. Chief among these targets were the Jews.
Hitler Scapegoats the Jews
A scapegoat is someone who is forced to bear the blame for
someone else. Hitler blamed the loss of World War I and the
resulting economic and social problems on the Jews. By creating a false and simplistic story about how Jews brought about
the fall of Germany, Hitler attempted to unify the German
people against a common enemy. He was helped in this effort
by widespread anti-Semitism, or hatred of Jews. Anti-Semitism
is based on a broad set of false beliefs, including the notion
that Jews constitute an identifiable and inferior race.
In truth, Judaism is not a race but a culture and a religion,
the roots of which go back nearly 4,000 years. An ancestor of
Christianity and Islam, Judaism is characterized by a belief in
THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF NIGHT
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a single God who communicated important teachings
through the prophet Moses. These teachings are recorded in
the holy book called the Torah and interpreted, in part, in a
second book called the Talmud. As Night begins, the young
Elie Wiesel is immersed in the study of these two books.
Judaism strongly emphasizes such study. Jews celebrate several important holidays throughout the year, the most
important of which are Rosh Hashana, or the Jewish New
Year, and Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement. These two
holidays also figure in important ways in Night. Also important in Night is Passover, which commemorates God’s sparing, or “passing over,” of the Jewish households when firstborn sons were slain in Egypt.
Hitler defined Jews not as people who practiced the Jewish
religion, but as those who had three or more grandparents
who were Jewish. As soon as he ascended to power, Hitler
began a progressive campaign to persecute and, eventually, to
eliminate all Jews in the Third Reich. In 1935, the Nuremburg
laws declared German Jews to be non-citizens and thus
unable to participate in German politics. Soon, Jews were forbidden to obtain passports or travel abroad. They were forced
to carry special identification cards; by 1939, the identification cards were supplemented by gold stars of David on their
clothing. Jews were banned from public transportation,
schools, universities, and theaters. They were rounded up and
forced to live in special sections of cities, called ghettos. Those
who resisted these measures were arrested or killed. As
Germany conquered additional nations and territories, Jews
in those places were subjected to the same treatment.
By 1940, huge numbers of Jews were being removed to
concentration camps. Conditions in these camps were brutal. Food consisted of meager rations of bread and watery
soup. Prison clothing was insufficient for cold winters. Most
prisoners became forced laborers working to support the
German war effort that kept them enslaved.
Darkness Falls: The “Final Solution”
In 1942, the Nazi Party formulated its “Final Solution.”
Essentially, the Final Solution was a plan to separate Jews,
Gypsies, and Russian prisoners of war into two groups, those
who could work to support the war effort, and those who
could not. The first group would be forced to work until
they died of starvation, exhaustion, disease, or exposure, or
until they became too weak to continue. Then the weak
would be murdered. The second group would be murdered
immediately.
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At first, the killing of Jews and other targeted populations was carried out by traveling death squads. Members of
the death squads either shot their prisoners or, later,
asphyxiated them in special “gas vans.” This one-on-one
killing was both inefficient and emotionally devastating for
many of the German officers assigned to carry it out. A
more efficient means of implementing the Final Solution
was needed. In late 1941 and early 1942, six death camps
were created in Poland. Those camps were AuschwitzBirkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibór, Lublin (also called
Majdanek), and Chelmno. At these locations, large groups
of prisoners were ushered into “shower” barracks and subjected to lethal gas.
Darkness Masked: Nazi Manipulation of Language
Carrying out the Final Solution required the cooperation
of a huge number of German soldiers, secret police (called
the Gestapo), and an elite group of soldiers called the SS.
How could these individuals carry out such a brutal plan?
And how could the rest of Germany, indeed the rest of the
world, stand by and let it happen?
There are no simple answers to this question. One possible answer, however, has to do with the way the Nazi regime
manipulated language. Euphemisms, or phrases that are used
in place of potentially harsh or offensive phrases, were developed to mask the horror of the regime’s activities. For example, party officials spoke of “liquidating” Jewish communities, which actually meant killing all of their residents.
Rather than saying various groups were targeted for death,
they said those groups were to be given “special treatments.”
Executions were called “special actions.” Prisoners who
worked in the crematoria were forced under threat of death
to call the bodies of the victims “dolls” or “rags.” Even the
phrase “the Final Solution” is carefully engineered to put a
positive spin on mass murder. This same plan was justified as
“purification” of the German people. Similar euphemisms
can be heard today when ethnically-motivated killing is
called “ethnic cleansing” and people who die in wars are dismissed as “collateral damage.” Governments or other powerful entities sometimes use euphemisms to gain support for
policies that otherwise would be resisted.
Light Dawns: The Final Years of the Holocaust
By the fall of 1944, Germany was losing ground in the
war. To prevent the death camps from being discovered by
Allied forces, all six were closed. The crematoria were hastily
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reduced to ruins, and the surviving prisoners were moved to
other camps.
As the Allies continued to close in on the Germans, the surviving prisoners in Polish concentration camps were forced to
walk to camps inside of Germany. During what became
known as the death marches, anyone who fell behind was
shot. Thousands more died of exhaustion and exposure.
One by one, the German camps were liberated by
American and Russian troops. Buchenwald, the final camp in
which Elie Wiesel was imprisoned, was liberated in a prisoner uprising on April 11, 1945. American soldiers arrived
the same day.
Tragically, many of the prisoners freed by Allied troops were
too malnourished or ill to survive. Of the group that did survive, some, including Elie Wiesel, have told their stories.
Bearing Witness: Holocaust Memoir
and Other Testimony
For those of us born after World War II, survivor memoirs
like Elie Wiesel’s Night are a primary means of learning about
the Holocaust. A memoir is a nonfiction narration that tells
a story based on a person’s experiences of and reactions to
historical events. Many other survivors, including Primo
Levi, Gerda Weissman Klein, Simon Weisenthal, and Isabella
Leitner, have written Holocaust memoirs.
For many who have written about the Holocaust, telling
their stories has been a painful process. Speaking about what
happened between 1939 and 1945 is a struggle, even an
impossibility, for many survivors. Certain memories are too
painful to recall. And even if one wants to speak of those
times, how does one find the words? Using language is, after
all, a process of making meaning, and the Holocaust is so
atrocious that it resists being made to “make sense.” Its horrors are beyond words, and to render them in words risks
misrepresenting them. Nazi euphemisms and abuses of language further contribute to this mistrust of words. In an
effort to show how language breaks down in the face of
atrocity, poets like Paul Celan and Nelly Sachs wrote increasingly abstract poetry. In their work images collide and break
against each other, punctuation disappears, and sentences
fail to lead where they seem to be going.
In the face of horrors that could not be communicated,
some writers despaired; some, like Primo Levi, Tadeusz
Borowski, and Paul Celan, eventually committed suicide.
Elie Wiesel has acknowledged the difficulty of bearing witness, saying:
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I knew the role of the survivor was to testify. Only I did
not know how….I mistrusted the tools, the procedures.
Should one say it all or hold it all back? Should one shout
or whisper? Place the emphasis on those who were gone
or on their heirs? How does one describe the indescribable? How does one use language in re-creating the fall of
mankind and eclipse of the gods? And then, how can one
be sure that the words, once uttered, will not betray, distort the message they bear?
For ten years, Wiesel was silent about his experiences,
waiting until he found a way, as he has said, “to unite the
language of man with the silence of the dead.” Since then,
Wiesel has been adamant about the importance of speaking
out: “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Only if Nazi atrocities were brought to the world’s attention
could he help ensure that nothing like the Holocaust happened again. In this sense, writing itself becomes an act of
resistance. In this act of resistance, writers are joined by
visual artists like Samuel Bak, Halina Olomucki, Helga King,
and Leo Haas as well as artists in many other arenas.
Could It Happen Again?
It is dangerously easy to think of the Holocaust as something that happened once, in that distant time called “history,” and that will never happen again. Surely the world
learned something from its tragic mistake.
While the world has not seen atrocities on the scale of the
Holocaust since 1945, similar events can and do happen
today. Genocide, or conspiring to destroy a group of people
because of their ethnic, national, racial, or religious identity,
has happened in at least sixteen countries in the past fifty
years. These countries are located in Africa, Asia, Europe, and
the Americas. Some of the most well-known have occurred
in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. The answer to the question “Could it happen again?” is clearly “yes.” This fact
makes Holocaust testimonies like Night even more important. Each of us needs to learn as much as we can about how
genocide happens so that we can be vigilant about preventing its recurrence.
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Characters in
Night
Major Characters
Elie Wiesel, the main character and narrator, is a fifteenyear-old boy whose life changes forever when German soldiers arrive in his hometown of Sighet, Hungary.
Chlomo Wiesel, Elie’s father, is a cultured, unsentimental
man and a respected member of the Jewish community in
Sighet.
Moshe the Beadle tries in vain to warn the people of Sighet
of the danger that awaits them.
Madame Schächter is transported to Birkenau in the same
train car as the Wiesels. Is she the first of the prisoners to
go insane, or is she the only one who perceives their fate
accurately?
Minor Characters
Sarah Wiesel is Elie’s mother. With her husband Chlomo,
Sarah runs a store in Sighet.
Hilde Wiesel is one of Elie’s older sisters.
Béa Wiesel is Elie’s other older sister. She and Hilde help
their parents in the store.
Tzipora Wiesel is the youngest child in the Wiesel family.
Berkovitz is a friend of the Wiesels who, like Moshe, tries to
warn the community of the danger to come.
Batia Reich, a relative of the Wiesels, is living with them in
the ghetto.
Stern is the Jewish policeman in Sighet who summons
Chlomo to an emergency meeting of the council.
Dr. Mengele, a notoriously cruel SS member and camp
physician, is in charge of determining which prisoners are
well enough to work and which should go immediately to
the gas chambers.
Bela Katz, who is deported before the Wiesels, is forced to
dispose of his own father’s body.
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Yechiel, another Jew from Sighet, encounters Elie at
Birkenau.
Stein is a relative of Sarah Wiesel. He seeks out Elie and
Chlomo at Auschwitz in the hopes of learning the fate of his
family.
Reizel is Stein’s wife.
Akiba Drumer, a devoted student of the cabbala, encourages
his fellow prisoners to consider their suffering a sign of God’s
love.
Hersch Genud, another student of the cabbala, views the
camp as a sign of the end of the world and the coming of the
Messiah.
Juliek is a Polish prisoner who plays the violin.
Louis, another violinist, is a prisoner from Holland.
Hans is a prisoner from Berlin.
Franek, a student from Warsaw and a fellow prisoner, is also
a foreman at the warehouse. He helps Elie obtain a place
next to his father. Later, though, he cheats Elie out of his
gold crown.
Idek, the Kapo at the warehouse, is responsible for savagely
beating both Chlomo and Elie.
Yossi is a Czechoslovakian prisoner and orphan.
Tibi is Yossi’s brother. Elie befriends both brothers.
Alphonse, a kind young Jew, is the head of the Wiesels’
block for a short time at Buna.
A French girl comforts Elie after Idek’s beating. Much later,
Elie runs into her in Paris.
A faceless patient, who is also nameless, gives Elie some disheartening advice when they are both in the hospital.
Zalman, a young Polish prisoner, succumbs to a cramp during the march from Buna to Gleiwitz.
Rabbi Eliahou asks Elie and his father to help him find his
son during the march to Gleiwitz.
Meir Katz, a strong, burly man who is a longtime friend of
Chlomo Wiesel, is broken by his experience in the camps.
CHARACTERS IN NIGHT
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Echoes:
Themes from the Holocaust
Bearing Witness
“In the dark times, will there be singing?
Yes, there will be singing
About the dark times.”
—Bertolt Brecht
“I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we
are guilty, we are accomplices.”
—Elie Wiesel
“Since then, at an uncertain hour
That agony returns,
And till my ghastly tale is told
This heart within me burns.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“I have written my story . . . in the hope that my children, asleep in their
cribs, should not awake from a nightmare and find it to be reality.”
—Gerda Weissmann Klein
Taking a Stand
“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages
the tormentor, never the tormented.”
—Elie Wiesel
“In Germany, the Nazis first came for the Communists,
And I didn’t speak up
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
And I did not speak up
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
And I didn’t speak up
Because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
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And I was a Protestant
So I didn’t speak up.
Then they came for ME . . .
By that time
There was no one to speak up for anyone.
To make sure this doesn’t happen again, the injustice
To anyone
Anywhere
Must be the concern of
Everyone
Everywhere. “
—Martin Niemoller
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but
there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
—Elie Wiesel
Learning from History
“How much of the concentration camp world is dead and will not
return, like slavery and the dueling code? How much is back or is coming back? What can each of us do so that in this world pregnant with
threats at least this threat will be nullified?”
—Primo Levi
“The events which transpired five thousand years ago, five years ago or
five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from
now; five years from now or five thousand years from now. All history
is a current event.”
—John Henrik Clarke
Rejecting Violence
“For us, a holy war is a contradiction in terms. War dehumanizes, war
diminishes, war debases all those who wage it.”
—Elie Wiesel
“. . . from violence, only violence is born, following a pendular action
that, rather than dying down, becomes more frenzied. In actuality,
many signs lead us to think of a genealogy of today’s violence that
branches out precisely from the violence that was dominant in Hitler’s
Germany.”
—Primo Levi
ECHOES
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Respond to the Selection
Imagine that you are fifteen-year-old Elie arriving at Birkenau. How would you
feel? What would you do about your feelings?
Investigate, Inquire, and Imagine
Recall: GATHERING FACTS
1a. What does Elie want to study?
Who is Moshe?
2a. What illusions do the Jews of
Sighet have when the Germans
first arrive?
3a. What day of the week is selected
for the Wiesels’ expulsion?
Where do Elie, his family, and
the rest of their community
spend their last twenty-four
hours in Sighet?
4a. What does Madame Schächter
believe she sees outside the train
window? What is really there?
How do the other passengers
react to her?
Interpret: FINDING MEANING
➛
➛
➛
➛
Analyze: TAKING THINGS APART
5a. Identify some of the warning
signs that the Jews of Sighet
ignore. What kinds of reassurances did they offer each other?
1b. What does this desire say about
Elie’s interests and beliefs? What
is the effect of starting Night
with the story of Moshe’s deportation and return?
2b. What does Wiesel mean when
he writes that illusion ruled the
ghetto?
3b. What is significant about this day
and place? In what ways are
these things fitting? In what ways
are they terribly inappropriate?
4b. Why does Madame Schächter
see this? Why do the other passengers react this way?
Synthesize: BRINGING THINGS TOGETHER
➛
5b. Why do you think the residents
fail to believe Moshe the Beadle?
Can you think of other times
when you or others have
avoided seeing obvious warnings? If so, what happened?
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Evaluate: MAKING JUDGMENTS
6a. Before the train pulls out of the
station, the Gestapo put one
Jewish occupant in charge of
each train car, telling each that
they personally will be killed if
anyone escapes during the trip.
Why do you think they do this?
Extend: CONNECTING IDEAS
➛
6b. Based on the actions of the
Germans so far and what you
know about the Holocaust, predict what will happen to Elie
during his first days at Birkenau.
Understanding Literature
1. NARRATOR. A narrator is one who tells a story. The narrator in a work of fiction
may be a central or minor character or simply someone who witnessed or heard
about the events being related. In a memoir or other autobiographical work, the
narrator is nearly always the same as the main character. This does not necessarily mean that the narrator and the main character share the same thoughts and
feelings, though. In Night, as in many autobiographical works, the narrator is
considerably older than the fifteen-year-old main character; Elie Wiesel is now
further removed from the events he is relating, and his perspective on those
events may have changed. What beliefs or thoughts did you have as a younger
person that have since changed? In Night, the young Elie cannot believe the
story Moshe tells upon his return to Sighet. Instead, he pities the man. How do
you think the older Elie Wiesel’s views on Moshe are different from this? As you
read the rest of the book, note those places where the older Wiesel reflects on
and even criticizes the reactions of his younger self.
2. DRAMATIC IRONY. Irony is a difference between appearance and reality. One
type of irony is dramatic irony, in which something is known by the reader or
the audience but unknown to the characters. Night deals with historical events
that are to some degree familiar to readers, but those who were living through
those events lacked the information and perspective to understand them. For
this reason, the first few chapters are full of dramatic irony. For example, Elie’s
father asserts that “[y]ou don’t die of” a yellow star, when in fact millions of Jews
did die because they were Jewish and had to wear the Star of David. Name at
least two more examples of dramatic irony.
3. FORESHADOWING. Foreshadowing is the act of presenting materials that hint at
events to occur later in a story. Wiesel’s inclusion of Moshe the Beadle’s story in
his narrative is an example of foreshadowing. Another example is Wiesel’s comment: “It was neither German nor Jew who ruled the ghetto—it was illusion.”
These words indicate to the reader that the residents’ optimism is misplaced. Of
what events might Madame Schächter’s cries on the train be considered foreshadowing?
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4. SYMBOL. A symbol is a thing that stands for or represents both itself and
something else. To figure out what a symbol represents, you need to think
about the associations most people have with the object, but you also need to
look closely at the part of the text in which the symbol appears. How is the
object described? Does it appear once, or several times? How does it change, if
at all? Is it associated with a particular emotion, character, or occurrence? In the
first chapter of Night, Wiesel recollects the abandoned possessions that littered
the streets of the ghetto as residents were deported. Some readers have suggested that these possessions are symbols of the hopeful illusions the deportees
left behind them. Others have mentioned specifically the “faded portraits”
among the possessions, wondering if they symbolize the lives that will “fade
away” or be lost in the camps. Do these interpretations make sense to you?
Why, or why not? As you might guess from the title of the book, “night” will
become an important symbol in the book. Based on your associations with night
and your knowledge of what night sometimes symbolizes in literature, make a
prediction about what night will symbolize in Wiesel’s account. Then, as you
continue reading, pay attention to all references to night to see whether or not
they support your prediction.
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1–2
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Plot Analysis of
Night
A plot is a series of events related to a central conflict,
or struggle. The following plot pyramid illustrates the
main parts of a plot.
PLOT PYRAMID
Climax
(D)
C) Fallin
n(
gA
tio
c
cti
A
on
g
in
(E)
Ris
Exposition (A)
Inciting Incident
(B)
Dénouement (G)
Resolution
(F)
The parts of a plot are as follows:
The exposition is the part of a plot that provides the
background information, often about the characters, setting, or conflict.
The inciting incident is the event that introduces the
central conflict.
The rising action, or complication, develops the conflict to a high point of intensity.
The climax is the high point of interest or suspense in
the plot.
The falling action is all the events that follow the climax.
The resolution is the point at which the central conflict
is ended, or resolved.
The dénouement is any material that follows the resolution and that ties up any loose ends.
Exposition (A)
Elie, his family, and Moshe the Beadle are introduced in
their town of Sighet. The reader learns that Elie is deeply
religious and committed to religious study. Moshe the
Beadle is deported, but escapes to tell the villagers about
the slaughter of the other deportees. The villagers refuse to
believe him and cling to the hope that they are safe.
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Inciting Incident (B)
German troops arrive in Sighet. The leaders of the Jewish
community are arrested, and the rest of the Jews are forbidden to leave home for three days. Then they are forced to
move into two ghettos. Some still cling to optimism.
Rising Action (C)
Word comes that all of the Jews in Sighet will be
deported to a secret destination. After a brief stay in the
smaller ghetto and twenty-four hours in the overcrowded,
ruined synagogue, Elie and his family are marched to the
train station and loaded onto a train bound for Birkenau,
the reception center for Auschwitz. During the long trip,
they suffer hunger, thirst, and the piercing cries of
Madame Schächter, who claims to see flames outside the
windows of the train.
When at last they arrive at Birkenau, Elie and his father
are separated from his mother and sisters, stripped of their
clothing and their hair, forced into hot showers, given illfitting prison clothing to wear, and marched into
Auschwitz. After three weeks at Auschwitz, they are
marched the four hours to Buna, where they are placed on
a crew that works in an electrical warehouse.
Elie gets to know several people at the warehouse: Juliek
and Louis, two violinists; Hans from Berlin; Franek, a student from Warsaw; Yossi and Tibi, two Czech brothers; and
a French girl who speaks to him kindly after he is beaten
by Idek, the Kapo. Both Elie and his father are beaten at
various times by Idek. As a result of this harsh treatment,
in combination with poor nutrition, insufficient clothing,
and hard labor, the prisoners grow weaker. Psychological
torments include witnessing several executions, having to
endure “selections” and see friends taken to their deaths,
and living under constant threat of execution themselves.
Elie and many others question their faith.
Over the winter, Elie’s foot becomes infected, and he
must undergo surgery in the camp hospital to prevent losing his leg. Before he can recover, the camp is evacuated so
that the advancing Russian troops can’t liberate it, and Elie
and his father endure a twenty-four hour “death march” to
Gleiwitz. Hundreds of fellow prisoners collapse or are shot
along the way. When they arrive in Gleiwitz, Elie hears
Juliek play a final violin concerto before Juliek dies.
After three days at Gleiwitz with no food or drink, the
survivors are packed onto cattle cars for the trip to
PLOT ANALYSIS OF NIGHT
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Buchenwald. As they pass through German villages, people
throw food into the cars and watch the starving prisoners
fight to the death for a piece of bread. Many more die or
are killed. Elie sees a son kill his father for bread. He is
grateful that he and his father are still together.
Climax (D)
By the time they arrive at Buchenwald, Elie’s father
Chlomo is gravely ill with dysentery. The doctor refuses to
treat him, saying that he will die soon anyway. Elie stays
with his father as much as he can, bringing him his own
food rations. When Chlomo attracts the attention of an SS
officer in the barracks, the officer beats him over the head,
shattering his skull.
Falling Action (E)
Elie wakes up the next morning to discover that his
father has been taken to the crematory. He is horrified by
the relief he feels. Transferred to the children’s block, Elie
spends three months thinking only of food and survival.
On April 5, 1945, as Allied forces approach, the SS begin to
evacuate the camp.
Resolution (F)
Right before Elie’s block is evacuated, the Jewish resistance rises up and defeats the SS, who flee the camp. By the
end of the day, the first American troops have arrived at
the camp gate.
Dénouement (G)
The liberated prisoners eat until they are no longer hungry, but Elie contracts food poisoning and is hospitalized.
He looks in the hospital mirror and gets his first look at
himself in over a year. His skeletal appearance horrifies
him.
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Creative Writing Activities
Diary of Daily Occurrences
In Night, Elie Wiesel gives us snapshots of his life from
the early summer of 1944 through the spring of 1945, but
many days pass unremarked. The supplies needed for keeping a daily account of events—paper, pencils, and pens—
were luxuries most concentration camp inmates would not
have had.
Pick an event from the book that affected you. Now
imagine you are Elie, and that you have paper and a pen.
Write a diary entry for each day of the week during which
this event took place. Include both the events of each day
and your feelings about those events.
Biography of a Survivor
Do you know any survivors of the Holocaust? Do you
know anyone who has survived some other cataclysmic
event: a war, a natural disaster, an accident, a political
upheaval? If you know someone who is willing to talk to
you about his or her experience, set up an interview with
that person. Prepare a list of questions that will help you
understand not only what happened, but how your subject
felt about the events and how those events impacted his or
her life. If your subject will discuss a historical event, you
might also want to do some research on that event prior to
the interview. When you meet with your subject, use your
prepared questions, but also let the conversation unfold.
After the interview, organize your notes into a biographical story. Use precise language that conveys the mood of
the event.
Found Poem
Night is full of powerful images that portray the horror
of the Holocaust and Elie’s deteriorating faith. Look back
through the book and note lines that you find particularly
effective in conveying one of the book’s themes. (Keep a
record of the page numbers where you find the lines you
list; your teacher might ask you to turn this record in with
your poem.) Now arrange these lines into a poem that
expresses this theme. Your poem should be between eight
and fifteen lines long, and you must use only language you
find in the book.
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Short Story Illustrating a Theme of Night
Review your answer to the Understanding Literature
question on theme (page 101). Pick one of the themes from
Night, and write a short story illustrating that theme. Your
story need not be about the Holocaust or a world event. In
fact, you might choose to write about a situation you have
experienced or observed in the lives of the people around
you. For example, you might write about a contemporary
teenager’s crisis of faith, or about how a character survives
a traumatic event. Remember that the best short stories
often involve a relatively short period of time and deal
with small events that nevertheless have great meaning for
those who experience them.
Newspaper Article on Buchenwald
Beginning on page 105, you will find a series of brief
newspaper articles that report on the liberation of
Buchenwald concentration camp. Elie Wiesel also
describes this moment in history in Night. Imagine that
you are a reporter on the scene. How would you report the
story? Write an article for your local newspaper. Keep in
mind that most newspaper articles begin with a lead paragraph that both hooks the reader and identifies the most
important facts: who, what, where, when, and how.
Flyer for an Author Appearance
Imagine that Elie Wiesel is going to give a speech at
your school. Your job is to publicize the speech and persuade people to come and hear him. Write the copy for a
flyer that will advertise the event. Your flyer should
include details about when and where Wiesel will be
speaking and the ticket cost, but it should also convince
readers that they need to hear what Wiesel has to say. After
you have written your copy, design the flyer. What images
will you use? How will you lay out the text?
CREATIVE WRITING ACTIVITIES
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Critical Writing Activities
The following topics are suitable for critical essays on
Night. An essay on any one of these topics should begin with
an introductory paragraph that introduces the topic and
states the thesis, or main idea, of the essay. This introduction should be followed by several paragraphs that support
the thesis using examples from the book. The last paragraph
of the essay should be a conclusion that restates the thesis
of the essay in different words. The conclusion should also
bring a sense of closure to the essay. One way to bring closure is to link your topic to its greater significance.
Analyzing Representations of Dehumanization
On page 34, as he describes what happened to Elie and
his father upon arrival at Birkenau, Wiesel asserts: “Within
a few seconds, we had ceased to be men.” What does this
statement mean? How does Wiesel use language to convey
the prisoners’ dehumanization? Write an essay in which
you answer these questions. Use details from the book to
support your thesis, paying special attention to the
metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech Wiesel
uses. In your conclusion, you might address why the SS
guards wanted to dehumanize their charges. What purpose
did dehumanization serve?
Tracing a Motif
Wiesel weaves a pattern of repeated images throughout
Night. For example, images of light and dark, mentions of
soup, reflections on faith, and images of fire and burning
tie the chapters of the book together. In literary terms,
these elements qualify as motifs, or elements that recur
throughout a work or works. Choose one of these motifs,
and look closely at Wiesel’s references to it. What does
each reference tell you about the characters? about the
events being described? Why do you think this element
becomes such a significant motif in this book? Write an
essay answering these questions.
Analyzing Point of View
In Night, the reader learns about the experiences of concentration camp inmates through Elie’s point of view.
Even though Elie has relatively little control over external
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events throughout most of the book, his personality
shapes the way he tells the story. It determines which
details he chooses to relate and which he leaves out. Write
an essay in which you explain how Elie’s point of view
affects the story he tells. As you plan your essay, it might
be helpful to think about how the story would be different
if it were told, for example, from the point of view of the
faceless man who shares the hospital ward with Elie. What
aspects of Elie’s character most influence the book? How is
the book affected, for example, by the fact that Elie has
spent much of his life studying religious teachings?
Illustrating a Theme
Review your answer to the Understanding Literature
question about theme on page 101. What do you think is the
most significant theme of Night? Write an essay in which
you show how Wiesel conveyed this theme throughout the
book. Include specific quotations and details from the book
that illustrate the theme you have chosen.
Understanding Irony
Write an essay in which you discuss Elie Wiesel’s use of
irony in Night. Before you begin, review the definition of
dramatic irony on page 26 and the definitions of verbal irony
and irony of situation on page 101. Then write a thesis that
makes a claim about how or why Elie Wiesel uses irony in
Night. The body of your essay should cite specific examples
of irony that support your thesis. In your conclusion, mention how Wiesel’s use of irony is related to the overall
theme of the book.
Expressing the Inexpressible
Some modern philosophers have suggested that the
Holocaust deprived language of its meaning. Elie Wiesel
seems to support this ideas when he claims: “Here the
word ‘furnace’ was not a word empty of meaning….It was
perhaps the only word which did have any real meaning
here.” The Holocaust involved horrors so great that they
could not be expressed in language. Several readers of
Night have suggested that Wiesel overcomes this problem,
managing to express inexpressible horrors through his use
of figurative language, including similes, metaphors,
synecdoche, irony, and understatement. Write a paper in
which you support this position. In the body of your essay,
CRITICAL WRITING ACTIVITIES
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include examples of figurative language and explain how
that language conveys the reality of camp life better, perhaps, than literal language could. (Note: You may want to
review definitions of types of figurative language in the
Handbook of Literary Terms at the back of this book.)
Responding to Holocaust Denial
There are some people, including members of an organization called the Institute for Historical Review (IHR),
who deny that six million Jews were killed during the
Holocaust. If you search for information on the Holocaust
on the Internet, you might find sites created by Holocaust
deniers. The most common claims of these individuals
include that there was no German program to exterminate
Europe’s Jews, that gas chambers were never used for mass
killings, and that the estimate of six million Jews killed is
an exaggeration.
Based on the photos on pages xx–xxvii and the contents
of this book, how would you respond to those who deny
the Holocaust? If you like, you may do additional research
to support your response. As part of the Nizkor Project, a
Holocaust remembrance site, you can read a document
written by IHR called “66 Questions and Answers about the
Holocaust,” as well as Nizkor’s response to IHR’s position.
The address for this part of the Nizkor site is http://www.
nizkor.org/features/qar/qar00.html.
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Projects
Holocaust Website
Work with a group of two or three people in your class
to plan a website that will teach others about the
Holocaust. If you have access to a server and possess the
technical skills you need, you can actually put your website online. If not, you can create mock-ups of the pages on
paper.
Your first step should be to consider the purpose of your
website. Should it be primarily an educational site where
students like you can learn about the Holocaust? Should it
be a memorial website using art and poetry to commemorate the lives of those who died? Or should it be aimed at
preventing anything like the Holocaust from happening
again? Once you have a purpose in mind, think about the
kinds of material, both text and images, you need to
include in order to accomplish your purpose.
Your website should include at least the following: a
well-written opening page that expresses the purpose of
your website; enough material to support that purpose;
and at least three links to reliable Holocaust websites
where visitors can get more information.
Newspaper Covering the Liberation of Buchenwald
As the related reading on page 109 indicates, many
American papers did not provide extensive coverage of the
Holocaust while it was happening. Articles about the fate
of the Jews in Europe and the liberation of the concentration camps were brief and were often buried deep inside
the paper.
Imagine that you are a newspaper publisher on April 11,
1945, and you just got word that Buchenwald has been discovered by American troops. Imagine, too, that you had
the resources and the reporters to put out an entire special
issue on this event.
Write the stories you need to create this special issue.
Obviously, you will want to cover the uprising of the
Jewish Resistance that freed the camp, as well as the arrival
of American troops on the scene. You might also want to
include stories that provide background information on
Hitler’s treatment of Jews and other minorities. Also consider including information on the history of Buchenwald,
interviews with survivors, and comments from the
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American soldiers who found the camp. You can find more
information about Buchenwald by typing its name into an
Internet search engine.
Use word processing or page layout software to format
your newspaper. Print enough copies for your teacher and
classmates.
Researching Genocide
Could something like the Holocaust happen today?
Social scientists report that, in the last sixty years alone, at
least sixteen countries experienced genocide, or the crime
of destroying or conspiring to destroy a group of people
because of their ethnic, national, racial, or religious identity. Understanding these cases can help us prevent similar
events from occurring again.
With this goal in mind, research one of the following
instances of genocide and prepare your findings for the class:
•
•
•
•
•
•
The massacre of Armenians during World War I
The persecution of Hungarians in Romania
Indonesia’s atrocities in East Timor in 1975
The Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
The murder of Mayans in Guatemala in the 1980s
The slaughter of the Tutsi tribe in Rwanda in the
1990s
• Ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia
Holocaust Art Exhibit
Some survivors of the Holocaust have written about
their experiences; others have created art to represent what
happened to them. Using the Internet and print resources,
find at least fifteen pieces of Holocaust art for an exhibition you are curating. For each piece, record the artist and
title, the location where you found the art, and a paragraph explaining what the art depicts and/or why you
have chosen it for your exhibition.
The following websites provide good starting places as
you look for art:
• Witness & Legacy: Contemporary Art About the
Holocaust at http://www.albany.edu/museum/
wwwmuseum/ holo/
• Learning About the Holocaust Through Art at
http://art.holocaust-education.net/
• Remember.org at http://www.remember.org/index.
html
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Presentation on Resistance Movements
Much of the world, including many ordinary Germans,
turned their backs while millions of people were killed by
the Nazi regime. There were, however, Germans who
resisted the Nazis. Using print and electronic resources,
including the Internet, identify and research one such
individual or group. Possibilities include the Righteous
Gentiles, the Jewish Resistance, the dissenting clergy, the
White Rose, Claude Cahun and her Soldat ohne Namen
(Soldier Without Name) movement, Oscar Schindler, and
many others. Prepare a presentation on your resistor or
resistors, identifying who they were, how they resisted,
and what happened as a result.
Fighting Prejudice
Prejudice—based on race, ethnicity, religious belief,
ability or disability, and sexual orientation—was at the
root of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, such prejudices still
exist today. Spend some time finding out what organizations and individuals around the country are doing to
combat one of these forms of prejudice. What do you
think would help eliminate the false beliefs and stereotypes people have about each other? Plan a project in your
school or community to raise awareness about prejudice or
work toward its elimination. Describe your plan in a
detailed proposal. Then use your proposal to work with
your teacher, school administrators, or community leaders
to put your plan into action.
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Glossary of Words for Everyday Use
PRONUNCIATION KEY
VOWEL SOUNDS
a
hat
ā
play
ä
star
e
then
ē
me
i
sit
¯
my
ō
.
o
.
u
ü
oi
ou
u
go
paw, born
book, put
blue, stew
boy
wow
up
ə
extra
under
civil
honor
bogus
CONSONANT SOUNDS
b
but
ch
watch
d
do
f
fudge
go
h
hot
j
jump
k
brick
l
m
n
ŋ
p
r
s
sh
lip
money
on
song, sink
pop
rod
see
she
t
th
v
w
y
z
sit
with
valley
work
yell
pleasure
a • bo • min • a • ble (ə bam´ nə bəl) adj., worthy of disgust or
hatred.
ab • strac • tion (ab strak´ shən) n., an idea that is merely theoretical.
ab • strac • tion (ab strak´ shən) n., something that is removed
and not quite real.
a • byss (ə bis´) n., immeasurably deep space.
ac • com • plice (ə kam´ pləs) n., someone associated with
another, especially in wrongdoing.
ad • u • la • tion (a jə lā´ shən) n., excessive admiration or flattery.
al • lu • sion (ə lu´ zhən) n., reference to a historical event or literary work.
a • nec • dote (a´ nik dōt) n., a short story about an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident.
an • ni • hi • late (ə n¯´ ə lāt) vt., to cause to cease to exist.
a • po • li • ti • cal (ā pə li´ ti kəl) adj., not concerned with politics.
ap • pease (ə pēz´) vt., cause to subside; satisfy.
as • cend (ə send´) vt., move up.
a • tone • ment (ə tōn´ mənt) n., apology or compensation for
an insult or injury.
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.
au • to • ma • ton (o ta´ mə tən) n., robot.
a • vid (a´ vəd) adj., urgently eager.
balm (ba(l)m) n., soothing substance.
be • reaved (bi rēvd´) adj., suffering from a great loss.
be • stial (bēs´ chəl) adj., marked by inhuman or brutal instincts.
blan • dish • ment (blan´ dish mənt) n., words intended to
coax or allure.
charge (charj) n., person in someone else’s care.
ci • vil • ian (sə vil´ yən) adj., a person not on active duty in a
military, police, or fire-fighting force.
.
clout (klaut) n., blow, especially with the hand.
col • la • bor • ate (kə la´ bə rāt) vi., work together.
com • mo • tion (kə mō´ shən) n., noisy confusion; agitation.
com • pa • tri • ot (kəm pā´ trē ət) n., a person who was born
in or lives in the same country as another.
com • pul • sor • y (kəm pəls´ rē) n., mandatory; enforced.
con • cede (kən sēd´) vt., admit.
con • cei • va • ble (kən sē´ və bəl) adj., able to be imagined.
con • demned (kən demd´) n., person or people who are
doomed.
con • geal (kən jēl´) vi., solidify.
con • so • la • tion (kan sə lā´ shən) n., source of comfort.
con • spi • cu • ous (kən spi´ kyə wəs) adj., obvious.
con • ta • gion (kən tā´ jən) n., contagious or corrupting influence.
con • vic • tion (kən vic´ shən) n., a strong persuasion or belief.
con • vul • sive • ly (kən vəl´ siv lē) adv., in violent spasms.
.
coun • ten • ance (ka un´ tə nəns) n., face.
cre • ma • tor • y (krē´ mə tōr ē) n., a furnace for reducing
bodies to ashes.
cru • cib • le (kru´ sə bəl) n., place or situation which causes
change or development.
de • ci • sive (di s¯´ siv) adj., crucial; key.
de • fi • ance (di f¯´ əns) n., tendency to resist or challenge.
.
de • nounce (di nauns´) vt., speak out against.
.
de • por • ta • tion (dē por tā´ shən) n., removal from a country or region.
de • vise (di v¯z´) vt., plan; plot.
dis • em • bark (di səm bark´) vt., to get off a means of transportation.
GLOSSARY
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dis • hear • ten (dis har´ tən) vt., cause to lose spirit or morale.
dis • po • si • tion (dis pə zi´ shən) n., settlement.
di • vert (də vərt´) vt., turn from one use to another.
e • dict (ē´ dikt) n., order; command.
e • ma • ci • at • ed (i mā´ shē āt əd) adj., very thin; wasted
away.
em • bark • a • tion (em bar kā´ shən) n., boarding.
em • blem (em´ bləm) n., a symbol used as an identifying mark.
em • i • gra • tion (e mə rā´ shən) n., leaving one’s country to
live elsewhere.
en • cum • bered (in kəm´ bərd) adj., weighed down; burdened.
e • voke (i vōk´ ) vt., bring to mind.
.
ex • hor • ta • tion (ek s or tā´ shən) n., urgent appeal.
ex • ile (e´ z¯l) n., state of being away from home, usually by
force.
.
ex • pound (ik spa und´) vt., explain in careful and elaborate
detail.
ex • trac • tion (ik strak´ shən) n., the act of pulling out by
force; removal.
.
fal • ter (fol´ tər) vi., hesitate; waver.
fa • mished (fa´ misht) adj., extremely hungry.
farce (fars) n., a ridiculous or empty show.
.
for • ti • fy (for´ tə f¯) vt., make stronger.
gal • lows (a´ lōz) n., a frame of two upright posts and a
crossbar from which criminals are hanged.
Ge • sta • po (ə sta´ pō) n., secret police who often employed
underhanded or terrorist tactics.
guer • ril • la (ə ril´ ə) n., a warrior who engages in irregular
warfare, such as surprise attacks or interference with communication or supply lines.
guil • lo • tine (ē´ yə tēn) n., a machine for beheading with a
large blade on vertical slides.
guise (¯z) n., external appearance.
ha • rangue (hə raŋ´) vt., rant; lecture.
har • row • ing (har´ ō iŋ) adj., causing torment or horror.
her • me • ti • cal • ly (hər me´ ti kə lē) adv., in a way that is
airtight.
hu • ma • ni • ta • ri • an (hyu ma nə ter´ ē ən) adj., centered
on human interests or values.
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hys • ter • i • a (his ter´ ē ə) n., overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess.
i • de • al • is • tic (¯ dē ə lis´ tik) adj., being guided by ideals.
im • per • cep • tib • ly (im pər cep´ tə blē) adv., so gradually
as not to be visible.
im • pe • tus (im´ pə təs) n., incentive; stimulus.
in • ces • sant • ly (in se´ sənt lē) adv., without stopping;
relentlessly.
in • cite (in s¯t´) vt., spur on; urge.
in • con • sid • er • ab • le (in kən si´ dər ə bəl) adj., trivial.
in • de • ter • mi • nate (in də tərm´ nət) adj., vague; undefined.
in • dis • cri •mi • nate • ly (in dis krim´ nət lē ) adv., haphazardly; randomly.
i • nert (in nərt´) adj., inactive; unmoving.
in • fa • mous (iń fə məs) adj., having a bad reputation.
in • fa • my (in´ fə mē) n., evil reputation brought about by
something criminal, shocking, or brutal.
in • fer • nal (in fər´ nəl) adj., of or relating to hell.
in • i • ti • a • tion (i ni shē ā´ shən) n., the condition of being
brought into some experience or sphere of activity.
in • num • er • ab • le (i num´ rə bəl) adj., countless; too many
to be numbered.
in • ter • lude (in´ tər lud) n., an intervening period, space, or
event.
in • ter • min • ab • le (in tərm´ nə bəl) adj., having or seeming to have no end.
in • tern (in´ tərn) vt., confine or imprison.
in • ti • ma • tion (in tə mā´ shən) n., hint; suggestion.
in • va • lid (in´ və ləd) n., someone who is sick or disabled.
in • ven • tor • y (in´ vən t .or ē) n., an itemized list of possessions or other assets.
.
ju • di • cial (j u di´ shəl) adj., belonging to the branch of government responsible for administering justice.
la • ment (lə ment´) vt., express sorrow, mourning, or regret.
la • men • ta • tion (la mən tā´ shən) n., expression of sorrow,
mourning, or regret.
li • qui • date (li´ kwə dāt) vt., to do away with.
li • vid • ly (li´ vəd lē) adv., in an ashen manner; palely.
lu • cid • i • ty (lu si´ də tē) n., clearness of thought or style.
ma • na • cled (ma´ ni kəld) adj., handcuffed.
GLOSSARY
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mar • tyr (mar´ tər) n., someone who sacrifices for a cause.
me • lan • cho • ly (me´ lən ka lē) n., depression; dejection.
me • tho • di • cal (mə tha´ di kəl) adj., systematic; orderly.
mir • age (mə razh´ ) n., something illusory or unobtainable.
mo • no • chrome (ma´ nə krōm) n., an image in various
shades of a single color.
mo • no • to • nous (mə na´ tən əs) adj., unvarying in tone,
pitch, and intensity.
mo • rale (mə ral´) n., the emotional condition of an individual
or group with regard to the tasks at hand.
mys • ti • cism (mis´ tə si zəm) n., the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be obtained
through intuition, insight, or some other direct means.
ni • ce • ty (n¯´ sə tē) n., fine point; precise distinction.
.
no • to • ri • ous (nō tor´ ē əs) adj., generally known and talked
about, usually in a negative way.
op • pres • sor (ə pre´ sər) n., person who uses power over
others unjustly.
parched (parcht) adj., extremely thirsty.
pa • ro • chi • al (pə rō´ kē əl) adj., narrow; excessively limited.
per • i • lous (per´ ə ləs) adj., full of danger.
pes • ti • len • tial (pes tə len´ shəl) adj., deadly.
pe • ti • tion • er (pə ti´ shən ər) n., person who is making a
request.
pil • lage (pi´ lij) vt., looting; plundering.
pla • card (pla´ kərd) n., poster; notice.
pre • mon • i • tion (pre mə ni´ shən) n., anticipation of an
event without conscious reason; hunch.
pri • va • tion (pr¯ vā´ shən) n., the state of being deprived.
prom • i • nent (pra´ mə nənt) adj., widely known; leading.
pro • strate (pra´ strāt) vt., to stretch out with one’s face on the
ground as a sign of submission.
pur • ve • yor (pər vā´ ər) n., supplier.
queue (kyu) n., line.
.
rau • cous (ro´ kəs) adj., hoarse; harsh.
re • gi • men • ta • tion (re jə mən tā´ shən) n., rigid organization for the sake of control.
ren • der (ren´ dər) vt., cause to be or become.
re • prieve (ri prēv´) n., temporary relief from trouble.
re • ti • cence (re´ tə səns) n., reluctance; hesitation.
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rev • e • la • tion (re və lā´ shən) n., communication of spiritual
truth.
re • ver • ie (re´ və rē) n., condition of being lost in thought.
ri • vet (ri´ vət) vt., hold someone’s attention as if they were
physically attached.
sa • bo • tage (sa´ bə tazh) n., an act tending to hurt or hamper someone’s intention.
sage (sāj) n., someone known for great wisdom.
sanc • ti • ty (saŋ´ tə tē) n., holiness; sacredness.
self-con • tained (self kən tānd´) adj., complete in itself, independent.
sem • blance (sem´ blən(t)s) n., resemblance to; appearance of.
si • new (sin´ yu) n., tendon.
spe • cu • la • tion (spe´ kyə lā shən) n., reflection.
sto • lid (sta´ ləd) adj., unemotional.
stric • ken (stri´ kən) adj., afflicted or overwhelmed by illness,
sorrow, or misfortune.
stu • pe • fy (stu´ pə f¯) vt., make groggy.
suc • cumb (sə kəm´) vi., give in.
suf • fice (sə f¯s´) vi., be adequate; satisfy.
sum • mar • i • ly (sə mā´ ri lē) adv., promptly; without delay.
tem • pest (tem´ pəst) n., violent storm.
traf • fic (tra´ fik) n., trade, exchange.
trun • cheon (trən´ chən) n., a police officer’s billy club.
vi • gi • lance (vi´ jə lən(t)s) n., watchfulness.
vi • li • fy (vi´ lə f¯) vt., make negative, abusive statements about.
vi • sion • a • ry (vi´ zhə ner ē) adj., dreamy.
vi • ta • li • ty (v¯ ta´ lə tē) n., liveliness; animation.
wi • zened (wi´ zənd) adj., dry, shrunken, and wrinkled.
GLOSSARY
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Handbook of Literary Terms
DRAMATIC IRONY. See irony.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. Figurative language is writing or
speech meant to be understood imaginatively instead of literally. Figurative language includes such literary techniques
as apostrophe, irony, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, paradox, personification, simile, synecdoche, and understatement.
FORESHADOWING. Foreshadowing is the act of presenting
materials that hint at events to occur later in a story.
IMAGE. An image is language that creates a concrete representation of an object or an experience. An image is also
the vivid mental picture created in the reader’s mind by
that language. The images in a literary work are referred to,
collectively, as the work’s imagery.
IMAGERY. See image.
IRONY. Irony is the difference between appearance and
reality. One type of irony is dramatic irony, in which something is known by the reader or audience but unknown to
the characters. Other types include verbal irony, in which a
statement is made that implies its opposite, and irony of situation, in which an event occurs that violates the expectations of the characters, the reader, or the audience.
IRONY
OF
SITUATION. See irony.
JUXTAPOSITION. Juxtaposition refers to placing two items
close together or side by side, often for the purpose of comparing or contrasting them.
METAPHOR. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which one
thing is spoken or written about as if it were another. This
figure of speech invites the reader to make a comparison
between the two things. The two “things” involved are the
writer’s actual subject, the tenor of the metaphor, and
another thing to which the subject is likened, the vehicle of
the metaphor.
NARRATOR. A narrator is one who tells a story. The narrator
in a work of fiction may be a central or minor character or
simply someone who witnessed or heard about the events
being related. In a memoir or other autobiographical work,
the narrator is nearly always the same as the main character.
SIMILE. A simile is a comparison using like or as. A simile is
a type of metaphor, and like any other metaphor, can be
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divided into two parts, the tenor (or subject being
described) and the vehicle (or object being used in the
description).
SYMBOL. A symbol is a thing that stands for or represents
both itself and something else. To figure out what a symbol represents, you need to think about the associations
most people have with the object, but you also need to
look closely at the part of the text in which the symbol
appears. How is the object described? Does it appear once,
or several times? How does it change, if at all? Is it associated with a particular emotion, character, or occurrence?
SYNECDOCHE. A synecdoche is a figure of speech in which
the name of part of something is used in place of the name
of the whole, or vice versa. In the command “All hands on
deck!,” hands is a synecdoche in which a part (hands) is
used to refer to a whole (people, sailors). Addressing a representative of the country of France as France would be a
synecdoche in which a whole (France) is used to refer to a
part (one French person).
TENOR. See metaphor.
THEME. A theme is a central idea in a literary work. It
expresses the main idea the writer wants to convey. The
theme can always be supported by evidence from the text.
VEHICLE. See metaphor.
VERBAL IRONY. See irony.
HANDBOOK OF LITERARY TERMS
151