Blog Post #1- Julia K

My experience so far has been chilling. It has made me feel angry and sad. I know that’s very general, but the fact that they would throw people into fires, and deprive them of all sense of hope or belief. It makes me take a step back and realize how lucky I am to not be under that constant pressure, and how lucky I am that I will never have to go through this. In the novel, Elie Wiesel vibrantly describes his memories of an older woman named Mrs. Schächter. Continuously, he writes about how she would repetitively claim that there was a fire, and that everyone needs to come see it, but whenever they looked there was nothing there. “Mrs. Schächter had lost her mind. On the first day of the journey, she had already begun to moan. She kept asking why she had been separated from her family. Later, her sobs and screams became hysterical . . . ‘Fire! I see fire! I see a fire!”(Wiesel 24) Mrs. Schächter horrified me at first. I had thought, why is this woman saying and doing these things? And then I understood. She was scared. And when I read this passage it made me feel afraid for what was to come for her and the others. Another chilling thing is that she was right. When everybody arrived at Auschwitz they all seemed to realize that there was a heavy smell of burning flesh. Elie figured out that there was in fact a giant fire that they were throwing the Jewish people into, including babies. This frightened everyone, especially Elie and his dad. “Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children.” (32) To me, the fact that they would throw anyone into a fire is terrifying and I can’t imagine having to go through that. I’ve found that in Elie Wiesel’s writing that he tends to slow down dramatic moments. He draws them out, leaving you on the edge of you seat. For example, take when Elie and his father are reunited with a relative, Reizel. Reizel explains how he can only make it through the worst of times because of the thought that his wife and children are doing well. One day he leaves and never comes back. “‘A transport just arrived from Antwerp. I shall go to see them tomorrow. Surely they have news . . .’ He left. We never saw him again. He had been given the news. The real news.” (45) This leaves the reader to decide what that piece of news was. It’s very dramatic the way he puts it and it’s a good way to, in my opinion, write a dramatic event.