TOW #4 -- "Night" by Elie Wiesel (IRB Post #1)

In the spring of 1944, the Jews of Sighet -- a town located in what is now modern day Romania -- gathered around their radios listening to reports of Jews across Europe becoming victims of violent attacks. Elie recounted their reluctance to believe that one man, Adolf Hitler, could wipe out an entire race, saying "The Germans were already in town, the Fascists were already in power, the verdict was already out – and the Jews of Sighet were still smiling."

In a matter of weeks, they too found themselves in that very situation when the Nazis stumbled upon their town. Yet, not once did their optimism waiver up until the point when innocent civilians began to be shot down in the streets. It was in the wake of Passover that the violence first struck. It started with a command to shoot any Jews who left their homes within the first three days following the holiday. Then the command was to shoot any Jews who refused to give up their valuable belongings. This progressed to the relocation of the Jews into two ghettos -- and then eventually to the deportation of the Jews to concentration camps in Germany.

At the time of Sighet's downfall, Elie was only 12 years old. He looked upon the town nervously as his father and the accompanying council members made the decision to not evacuate the area. He again looked upon the town nervously as the German soldiers marched through the streets, each choosing a house to occupy. Elie's fate was out of his hands, making him a mere bystander to the events unfolding around him. Within a few weeks, The Wiesels were transported to a ghetto where they would live for another few weeks until being transported to a smaller ghetto where they would await their deportation. They would then be forced into cattle cars -- some holding over 80 Jews at once -- and shipped off to Auschwitz, a Jewish concentration camp operated by the Nazis. There, Elie and his father would be split from his mother and sister and sent to work. Looming over were smokestacks working day and night releasing the smoke from the burning bodies in the furnace below. It is then that Elie begins to doubt his further existence, feeling abandoned by God as his death is looming near.

The reader can sense this in Elie as he Wiesel tells stories of himself looking for ways to kill himself rather than to be killed as a prisoner of the Nazis. He talks of one point when he thought about running into an electric fence to avoid being burned to death. This thought came shortly after he witnessed children being burned alive along the side of the trail he was walking on. Through images such as these which are imprinted in the minds of the readers, Wiesel is truly able to get the reader to sympathize with him as he writes.