Night By Elie Wiesel WWII 1939 1945 The

Night By Elie Wiesel

WWII 1939 -1945 • The Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933. • The Germans moved to extend their power in central Europe, annexing Austria and destroying Czechoslovakia. • Germany invaded Poland in 1939, beginning World War II. • Over the next two years, German forces conquered most of Europe. • The Germans established ghettos in occupied eastern territories, isolating and persecuting the Jewish population. • Nazi anti-Semitic policy expanded with the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. • Mobile killing units murdered Jews, Roma (also called Gypsies), Soviet political commissars and others. • When the Germans initiated the Final Solution, they and their collaborators deported Jews to extermination camps in occupied Poland (1942).

Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust Timeline • 1940 Nazis turned Sighet over to Hungary • 1944 Germans occupy Sighet (force Jews to wear yellow stars, closed Jewish stores, raided and occupied Jewish homes, created two ghettos) • May 1944 deportation begins. Wiesel family loaded up early June. • Elie Wiesel & his father survive Aushwitz & Buna labor camps for 8 months • January 16—Death march • January 29—Father dies and Elie Wiesel is sent to Buchenwald • April 6, 1945 guards told prisoners they would no longer be fed. • Began evacuating camp killing 10, 000 prisoners a day. • April 11 Underground movement overthrows SS guards • Early evening, first American military unit arrives and “liberates” the camp

Why “Night” is used: The Bible begins with God’s creation of the earth. When God first begins His creation, the Earth is “without form, and void; and darkness [is] upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1: 2). God’s first act is to create light and dispel the darkness. For Elie Wiesel, darkness and night symbolize a world without God. Night is always when the suffering is worst, and the presence of darkness reflects Eliezer’s belief that his has become a world without the presence of God.

How Night became Night • Wiesel first wrote a 900 -page text in Yiddish titled Un di Velt Hot Geshvign (And the World Remained Silent). The work later evolved into the much-shorter French publication La Nuit, which was then translated into English as Night. • The original title Elie Wiesel gave the novel was And the World Has Remained Silent. • He wrote this book after 10 years of silence.

Terms to Know Names and Places • Holocaust • Genocide • Ghetto • Kapo • Gestapo • Anti-Semitism • Death camp • Concentration camp • Adolf Hitler • Dr. Mengele • Aryan Race • Third Reich • SS • Dachau • Aushwitz • Theresienstadt • Selection • The Final Solution

Jewish / Biblical terms to know • • Cabbala Hasidism Job Kaddish Maimonides Zohar Passover Pentecost • • Rosh Hashana Lazarus Synagogue Talmud Temple Yellow star Yom Kippur Zionism

Strategies for Reading Nonfiction • Find the writer’s main points and support. • Ask yourself what the author wants you to learn or think about. Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

Night : Tone Eliezer’s perspective is limited to his own experience, and the tone of Night is therefore intensely personal, subjective, and intimate. Night is not meant to be an all-encompassing discourse on the experience of the Holocaust; instead, it depicts the extraordinarily personal and painful experiences of a single victim.

Night: Setting • setting (time) 1941– 1945, during World War II • settings (place) Eliezer’s story begins in • Sighet, Transylvania (now part of Romania; during Wiesel’s childhood, part of Hungary) The book then follows his journey through several concentration camps in Europe: • Auschwitz/Birkenau (in a part of modern-day Poland that had been annexed by Germany in 1939) • Buna (a camp that was part of the Auschwitz complex) • Gleiwitz (also in Poland but annexed by Germany) • Buchenwald (Germany)

Night : Themes • Eliezer's Struggle to Maintain Faith in a Benevolent God • Silence • Inhumanity Toward Other Humans • The Importance of Father-Son Bonds

Night : Symbols • Fire appears throughout Night as a symbol of the Nazis' cruel power. • Night always occurs when suffering is worst, and its presence reflects Eliezer's belief that he lives in a world without God.

Night Motifs • There are five motifs to look for while reading Night: motifs (a recurring subject, theme, or idea) • Night – pay attention to what happens at night and what that might symbolize. • Bearing Witness – Pay attention to which characters are witnesses and to what they bear witness. • Father-son Relationships – Pay attention to how Elie and his father’s relationship develops; in addition, notice other father-son relationships in the book. • Loss of Faith – Notice how Elie’s faith in God changes as the book progresses.

Motifs continued • Voice vs. Silence – Who has a voice and who chooses to remain silent? Why might Elie Wiesel title his novel what he did originally (And the World Has Remained Silent), and why did he no longer remain silent? • Click here to listen to Elie Wiesel's "A God who Remembers"

Night Study Guide Notes • In Poland, 90% of the approximately 3, 000 Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. • As you read, look for times that Wiesel mentions the people in surrounding towns. • There are several groups who contributed to the Holocaust, persecutors and by-standers included. • Be prepared to discuss: Why are by-standers just as important as the persecutors?