Post #1 - Sylvie

Night is by far the most challenging book I’ve ever had to read. It makes me question what I would do if I was put in Elie’s shoes, and I wonder how I would cope with my emotions. “It was only after the war that I found out who had knocked that night. It was an inspector of the Hungarian police, a friend of my father’s… Had he been able to speak to us that night, we might still have been able to flee… But by the time we succeeded in opening the window, it was too late. There was nobody outside. (p. 14) After I read this passage I felt shocked; if the window had been opened in time they could have escaped. Everything in this moment came down to chance, and I wonder what I would have thought if I found out that I could have escaped years later. I still do not really know how to process the holocaust in my mind. “‘Jews, listen to me,’ she cried. ‘I see a fire! I see flames, huge flames!’” (p. 24) I was overcome with emotion when I found out about the crematorium, because no one believed what this woman was telling them. Once they got to the camp and realized that her hallucinations were reality it was quite powerful. The foreshadowing in this memoir is really incredible, considering that this is Elie’s real life story. When I read this book I really feel like I’m standing next to Elie witnessing the holocaust. 

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 9, 2019 at 4:59 PM

    Slyvie,
    I agree with you about the forshadowing in this novel being incredible. If I was there when that woman was shouting about the flames, I would probably question my sanity. It kind of makes me want to ask Wiesel if that actually did happen. I understand what you mean by feeling like you're standing next to Wiesel during this time. I experienced this feeling as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. jane.zNovember 3, 2019 at 11:05 AM

    From Jared:

    Sylvie,


    Like Mary I also agree with the foreshadowing part. It is hard to even imagine what these people went through. If I was in Elie's shoes I also wouldn't know what to do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. jane.zNovember 5, 2019 at 3:41 AM

    From Leah:

    You did a great job of describing your emotions in this blog post. I found that I had a lot of the same ideas and feelings. when it's revealed that there was a fire, it seemed almost like a cruel joke because the woman had been beaten for something that was (even if most likely coincidentally) true.

    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