Evan Berger

Ms. Crowell

English 11-5

15 April 2019

Elie Wiesel’s Change Throughout Night

In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel describes his experiences in Auschwitz and other

concentration camps during the Holocaust. Wiesel recalls his ordeals in these camps and the

horrors he encountered as he tried to survive in the camps as a teenage boy. Throughout the

memoir, he uses these descriptions and his experiences at Auschwitz and shows how he changed

as a person and matured in a short period of time. He also talks about how he felt like his

thoughts sometimes betrayed him, such as when he wished he could leave his father behind and

when he questioned his faith in God. Through the memoir, Wiesel shows how he transformed

from a naïve, young child into a strong-willed man, who was not willing to give up. Elie was

able to push himself through the torture and pain by adapting and forcing himself, by mentalling

blocking the horrible experience encountered, so that he could survive.

Elie begins the book as a young, innocent child who is dedicated to his Jewish studies

and would struggle to survive in a forced labor camp. He comes across as an intellectual rather

than an athletic type. Elie claims he is “deeply observant” and “by day [he] studied Talmud and

by night [he] would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple” (3).

Religion plays a very important part in Elie’s life at this point. Elie also wants to learn more

about mysticism and its relation to Judaism and wants to achieve this by studying the Kabbalah

(4). Elie is very naïve with this goal as Jews are typically not able to begin studying the

Kabbalah until they are much older. With this in mind, Elie complains that can not find someone
to teach him the Kabbalah in Sighet, telling his father, “I told him how unhappy I was not to be

able to find in Sighet a master to teach me the Zohar” (5). This also shows that he was immature

as he was complaining about simple things he was unable to obtain. With this, Elie is showing

how childlike he is at this point of the story, and how he acted before the Germans force him to

the concentration camps while also showing that he would probably easily give up in a

concentration camp due to the fact that the main focus of his life, Judaism, is the reason the

Germans put him into the camp.

As soon as the Germans arrive in Sighet and deport Elie to a concentration camp, he

begins to change and stops putting faith in his religion as it is a necessity for him to be able to

survive the miserable conditions of the camps. Elie begins to lose faith in God and questions why

would He allow such things: “Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and

terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent” (33). This is one of many points where Elie

has lost almost all faith in his religion, something that is deeply important to him, and shows how

he is adapting to hate the thing that is the reason why he is in the camp. As he continues to

witness the horrors of Auschwitz, such as the crematoria, babies being killed, and starving

slaves, Elie continues to question why he should put faith in God. Near the end of his time at

Auschwitz, Elie witnesses a young pipel being hanged, which traumatizes him. Talking with an

inmate who asks, “For God’s sake, where is God?”, Elie responds by saying, “Where He is? This

is where -- hanging here from this gallows.” (65). The event was more extreme for many

prisoners because the pipel was so young, and with this fact, it had a much harsher effect on Elie.

This event shows that Elie has lost all faith in God and is at the point that he thinks God is dead

along with the dead pipel. Elie has faced many horrors in his time and they have caused him to

question his beliefs.

 Toward the end of his time in multiple concentration camps, Elie manages to adapt to his

situation and survive. He managed to survive walking over 50 kilometers as the SS made him

march form Auschwitz to Gleiwitz, even though his foot had recently been drained due to an

infection. Elie says, “I had to accept the fact: I would have to live with only one leg. The

important thing was not to dwell on it” (92). This shows that he had adapted to believe that the

most important fact was to survive, even if meant losing his leg. With the amount of pain he had

to go through with his infected foot and then walking on it, he had adapted so that he could try

and survive. Elie did not just manage to force himself through physical pain but also pushed

himself through mental anguish. At the end of the book, Elie had to deal with the fact that his

father had died. He says, “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep” (112), showing

that he had become emotionally detached from all traumatizing events in his life. Elie had seen

so many deaths over his time in the concentration camps, that his father’s death was just another

one. Elie was upset with himself as well because he was relieved for a minute that his father was

gone, as he thought that would make it easier for him to survive. Elie had changed so much, that

something that seemed so impossible, such as being happy about his father dying, could happen

to him. By the end of the memoir, Elie has shown that many events that would cause devastation

and grief in a typical person did not affect him due to the fact that he had to mentally adapt so

that he could process all of the death around him and continue to survive.

Overall, Wiesel showed how much he changed in his time at the concentration camps due

to the conditions that he was living him. These conditions led him from being an average

teenager into a boy who has become emotionally detached from the idea of death and has also

lost almost all his faith in his religion. Wiesel shows how he also managed to grow and become
someone who is able to push himself through almost anything if he wants to survive due to his

experiences.
 Works Cited

Wiesel, Elie. Night. Translated by Marion Wiesel, Hill and Wang, 2006.