Night By Elie Wiesel Analysis

Silence exists as an absolute in a metaphysical sense, the enemy of many is silence, the silence of enemies, the silence of bystanders and the silence of those who could not be heard. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, silence was one of the appalling reasons was so many Jewish people were killed during the holocaust. Silent is what the US was during the mass murder of Jewish civilians, what the people in nearby towns were when they knew what was going on, but refused to acknowledge what was going on and silent is what all the dead Jews are now. The Holocaust taught us to not be silent when other people are in need. Night starts out with a young Jewish boy named Eliezer Wiesel, he lives with his family in Sighet, a small town in Transylvania, Romania. It seems like his life is perfectly normal, until eventually all of the rights he and his people once had at one point. The Nazi party, led
Wiesel emphasizes the first 8 words he hears from the germans when he gets to the camp “Men to the left! Women to the right!” (Wiesel 38). He also acknowledges that this may be the last time he ever sees his mother and sister “Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight short, simple words. Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother.” (Wiesel 38). He does not even get to say goodbye before he takes on the unknown horror that is Auschwitz. For over 12 months, Eliezer works until he can hardly stand, staves until he is only skin and bones and he loses another family member. After liberation Elie can hardly recognize himself when he looks in the mirror, he compares himself to a living corpse. “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.” (Wiesel 119). Eliezer is not sure what the rest of his life will be like, or if he will ever have life after the