In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the main theme is silence. Silence is the main theme because it caused the Jews to lose everything they held dear.
As a result of their silence, the Jewish people lost their lives, freedom, and homes. Religion is a common and important theme in Night. It is first mentioned when Elie pursues learning about his faith with Moishe the Beadle. Eliezer loses faith in god. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. In the book, Elie loses faith in family, God, or even just staying in the same place.
This was yet another way in which the Nazis dehumanized the Jews. In chapter four of the novel, Wiesel describes a particularly sad event. In this chapter, a pipel is hanged alongside two grown men. The boy is hanged because he helped ruin an electrical plant that was supplying energy to help hurt the prisoners; he was also possessing weapons.
Elie did not move, and he kept silent, and he even thought of moving away so he would not be hit. As Idek ferociously beats him, Elie bites his lips so that no sound of pain will come from his mouth. Idek, getting no response, seems displeased—as if Elie is being defiant because he does not cry out. And so Idek continues to pound on Elie harder and harder. Three days after being liberated from Buchenwald, Elie becomes extremely ill and is transferred to a hospital.
One day, Elie gets out of his bed to look at himself in the mirror and only sees a corpse staring back at him. Elie writes that the image of the corpse has never left him. He lies and says that his mother has heard from Reizel.
This gives Stein great joy. But then, after another train arrives, Stein learns the truth and stops coming round to visit. Representing the political opposite of the Hasidic elders who preached nonviolence and patience, were two brothers named Tibi and Yossi. They believed in the precepts of Zionism, a political pressure movement active mostly in Europe to convince the world powers to create a Jewish state of Israel in the area of Palestine. They were Jews from Czechoslovakia whose parents had been exterminated at Birkenau.
The two boys taught Elie Hebrew chants while they worked. As Abraham, however, he refuses to sacrifice his son. He lives, while in the death camps, to try and keep his son alive. Eliezer, as a representation of Isaac, also safeguards his father. This relationship is the most important of the story. The bitterest moment comes when Chlomo believes himself selected and gives Eliezer his inheritance-a knife and spoon.
They have done well together until the end, when they are shipped to Gleiwitz, and then taken to Buchenwald. They are transported in open cars despite the snow with the result that Chlomo comes down with dysentery. Eliezer does all he can to comfort his father. He begins to resent the burden. The resentment he feels for his father haunts him. The haunting grows worse when Chlomo begins yelling to Eliezer for water.
A guard silences him with a blow from a truncheon. At some point, Chlomo is taken away to the crematory still breathing. Eliezer could only stand by. The narrating survivor of the camps is Eliezer, who became A Deeply fascinated by Hasidic Judaism, he finds an indulgent teacher in Moshe the Beadle.
The first cracks in his faith begin, however, when Moshe returns from deportation changed in demeanor and warning about impending doom. The cracks widen inside with every night spent in the camps. The crack is not exactly a rejection of God; it is a dismissal shouted out in anger. Eliezer had once believed profoundly and had lamented before God but he could no longer do so. Eliezer represents a truly aesthetic individual who represents the best of European civilization. Stern A thin Sighet police officer, Stern summons Chlomo to a council meeting.
At Birkenau, Stern receives an oversized tunic in the chaotic allotment of prison clothing. The Hungarian Police Inspector An unnamed friend, the officer promises to warn Elie's father if danger approaches and knocks on the window early on the morning of the deportation. Maria The Wiesels' servant, Maria pleads with them to leave the unguarded ghetto and seek safety with her. Her manic state progresses from moans to hysterical cries of "Fire!
A terrible fire! Oh, that fire! Bela Katz The son of a Sighet tradesman, Bela is selected to load the crematory and ordered to put his father's corpse into a crematory oven. Yechiel The brother of Sighet's rabbi who, on the night that Elie arrives at Birkenau, weeps for their doom. Akiba Drumer A deep-voiced singer who stirs the hearts of inmates with Hasidic melodies sung at bedtime, Drumer applies cabbalistic numerology to scripture and predicts deliverance from Buna within weeks.
After the selection at Block 36, he departs in despair, his faith destroyed. His fellow inmates forget his parting request for a Kaddish. Later, he shares crucial information about Idek, the manic Kapo, and, in the dark barracks at Gleiwitz, Juliek gives a final performance from a Beethoven concerto, a violinist's blessing. The next morning, he is dead and his violin trampled. Louis A distinguished Dutch violinist in the orchestra block, Louis complains because Jews are not allowed to play Beethoven's music.
Hans A Berlin musician in the orchestra block, he eases Elie's concern about his assignment to the electrical warehouse. Franek A former student from Warsaw who plays in the orchestra block and serves as foreman of the electrical warehouse, Franek keeps Elie near his father while they work, then drops his friendly treatment by demanding Elie's gold dental crown.
Franek's willingness to torment Elie's father suggests that the foreman has lost his humanity in the daily supervision of inmates. Yossi and Tibi Czech brothers who work at the electrical warehouse after their parents are killed at Birkenau, Yossi and Tibi are Zionists who befriend Elie and hum Jewish melodies as they dream of immigrating to Palestine.
When Block 36 undergoes selection, the brothers join Elie in a successful dash past Dr. Mengele's life-or-death assessing eyes. Alphonse A German Jew who heads the musicians' block, Alphonse devotes himself to providing extra cauldrons of soup for the young and the weak. The French Jewess A fearful worker in the electrical warehouse, the French Jewess pretends to be Aryan by forging papers and speaking only French. She soothes Elie after a severe beating by slipping him a piece of bread, wiping his bloody forehead, and whispering comforting words in German.
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