Julia- Final Blog Post

One of the biggest themes we have gone over is faith. In every book, movie, or video that we’ve seen, one of the main threads is the loss or gain of faith. This can be seen in Night. As the memoir progresses, we see Elie slowly start to lose faith in God. His loss of faith stuck with me. It upsets me that someone could be so cruel that they could make someone with Elie’s belief and reliance on God question their faith. It’s striking that someone could be hopeless enough to lose faith in God. Even more striking is when Elie says that he has more faith in Hitler, than in anyone else. His faith in Hitler makes me take a step back. For someone to believe in Hitler more than God makes me downhearted. It means Hitler followed through with his promises to do the awful things he did. To have faith in Hitler is one of the most terrible, yet understandable things during the Holocaust. While Elie still feels regret towards doubting God, his belief in God is supplemented by his in Hitler. He somehow found a way to carry on while believing Hitler is more truthful and honest than God. His faith in Hitler contributes to his survival. Hitler fuels a hate in Elie, that drives him to keep going no matter the tough circumstances. However, later in life in Elie’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, he explains how he regained his faith in God. He explains that nothing would get done without faith in God, and I now understand what he means. There would be no growth, no higher power to look up to, or rely on. In Life is Beautiful, a film in which a father and his son are taken to a concentration camp, the father proves that life can still be extraordinary even in the darkest times. While in the camp, Guido the father convinces his son, Giosue, that their experience is merely a game. Giosue puts his faith into his father that it is just a game to see who can get the most points and earn a tank as the prize. He believes his father that it will all be over soon and that being in a concentration camp is something that you shouldn’t worry about. In the end, Giosue’s faith in his father makes it so that he can make it out alive. Having faith was one of the main things that kept people like Giosue and Elie alive in the hard times they went through. Elie’s faith in Hitler made it so that he could have a realistic sense of what was to come, and Giosue’s faith in his father made it so that living was not as hard. Having faith is having something to rely on. It’s a tether to something that can make you see things as they are, or can make you see the good in things. Having faith helps drive us to survive inadmissible circumstances.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 1, 2019 at 9:30 AM

    Dear Julia,
    This post is very thorough. I agree that it is striking that someone could be so hopeless as to loose sight of something that they once relied on, and I really appreciate the word choice there. I completely understand what you mean by "take a step back". I can relate to that feeling. I also liked what you said in the end about this theme in Life is Beautiful.

    Mary

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 3, 2019 at 1:49 PM

    Good choice of theme. Faith is an integral part of the experience of the Holocaust, but I am left confused on how you define faith, and were it changes into belief or trust.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SioleNovember 7, 2019 at 7:45 AM

    Dear Julia

    You did an amazing job describing the importance of faith. I feel the same way of how it upsets me of how someone can be so cruel and question their faith. Your post is very thought out and has lots of detail. Great Job!!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Post #4 - Marco

While studying the Holocaust, I have seen one important theme showing up in many stories: luck. People had no control over their own lives. Everything that went on around them was all based on luck. For every missed opportunity, they could change nothing. People didn't know what would happen to them, their belongings, or their family. Anything could happen- they could be given extra soup, or be forced to work more, or get sick and die. For example, in One Survivor Remembers, Gerda Weissman’s father makes her wear ski boots when she was taken away, which was silly at the time, as it was summer. However, these boots proved crucial to her survival, as during the death marches, she had warm boots while other girls were wearing sandals. Another example is, in Night, Elie and his father decide to move on in a death march rather than staying in the camp hospital they were in at Buna. However, they later learned that it was liberated by the Russian Army right after they left. Also, Elie ha...
Read more

Blog Post #1-James

This book is horrifying. The few pages after Elie gets off the train are the most intense ten pages of a book that I have ever read. Wiesel’s poetic writing captivates the brutality of Auschwitz. His poetic inclination and deeply rooted religious beliefs are presented from the beginning: “Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”(Wiesel 4). He has such firm faith that he compares praying to breathing. With past hardships, he reasoned that they were tests from God to see if one is truly faithful, but after the terrors of the concentration camp he has doubt in God and does not pray with other men. “Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?”(Wiesel 33). This addresses a fundamental flaw in the concept of God. With all this suffering how could he exist? The Holocaust killed 11 million people. WWll killed 80 million. The god Elie prays too is proclaimed to...
Read more

Blog Post #4 - Sylvie

Before I read Night , before I went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, before I watched One Survivor Remembers , and before I learned that 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust, I could never have imagined mankind cabable of such a horrendous act. I experienced such a whirlwind of emotions as I read Night ; Wiesel’s book made me feel so much sadness, but I also felt empowered. Reading Night made me question what I would have done if I was living during the time of the Holocaust. Would I have been as brave? Would I have survived. I can not even begin to fathom the tremendous amount of strength it took for the Jews to fight back and keep the will to survive. Knowing that people have gone through such loss and hardship, I feel as if I can do anything. In one of the most powerful statements from Night , Wiesel writes, “Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night on the train, the last night in Buna.” I find this statement to ...
Read more