Just A Normal Day In The Camps Summary

     Eli has a definite change emotionally. He thinks about the things he would never consider if he was not in Auschwitz. For example, on page 102, Elie says, “I gave him what was left of my soup, But it was with a heavy heart. I felt that I was giving it up to him against my will.” In the beginning, it was as if Elie would do anything for his father. After all, his father was older and it was Elie’s turn to look after him. After a while, his father seems like almost a burden to him. Elie felt obligated to give him the rest of his food, but if given the choice, he probably would not have given it up easily.

From the time where Elie had to decide to fight for his father’s life, to the time where he questioned his beliefs, Elie has had to make many life-changing decisions. As some of his decisions left negative consequences, some were left a positive outcome. In the end, all the decisions Elie had made in the camps has made his life miserable or at its best. For better or for worse, the events that Elie encountered makes his life unforgettable as realizes there was more to life than he had thought of

Elie experienced many changes, as a person while he was in Auschwitz. Before Elie was sent to Auschwitz, he was just a small naive child that new very little

The thoughts of condemnation and lack of self-preservation wouldn’t have ravished his mind. Page eighty-six later reveals how Elie “soon forgot him” and became more selfish by “think{ing} of {himself} again. ”Throughout much of the book, Elie writes on his selflessness towards protecting and caring for his father, but after facing so much he grows more and more selfish. This quote shows the insensitive nature that Elie developed through his time spent in the concentration camps. Lastly, Elie continually confesses his personal conflict with emotional dormancy through his

At the end of Night by Elie Wiesel, the author gazes into a mirror for the first time since before he had been sent to the concentration camps. As Elie puts it, “From the depths of a mirror, a corpse was contemplating me” (pg. 109). He, of course, is talking about himself, or the shell of himself he had become after spending years in the concentration camps. During his time at the concentration camps, he had shed parts of his life and developed new aspects of his personality in order to adapt to his new lifestyle in German captivity. Wiesel himself puts it best: “Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never” (pg. 32). This was clearly the moment when Elie changed. The naive child Elie once was died and was replaced by a faithless, cynical adult.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw. George Shaw’s famous quote describes that to achieve, you must change yourself. On May 1944, Elie Wiesel and his family were forced out from his home in Sighet, Romania to live in Auschwitz, Germany. He and his two older sisters survived the holocaust, Elie then wrote his experience in 1960. During the span of the book, “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the novel demonstrates that traumatic events can change a person drastically. In the beginning, Elie lived with his family in Germany, his mother, his father, and his three siblings. The Germans forced the Jews to hand over their valuables, live in ghettos and finally moving them to concentration camps, including Elie’s family. He was disunited from his mother and three siblings, but managed to stay with his father. At first when he entered the camp he was pessimistic and discouraged when he saw the townspeople crying including his father. After, Elie then learned to take care of himself and his father during tragic events, he stuck to his ambitions and values which led him to go through many obstacles , despite the limitations, and be free of the camp of Auschwitz. As he set out Eliezer was an immature and carefree 15 year old who developed into a responsible young adult.

After surviving the Holocaust, Elie writes down the things he experiences as a young boy during that time period. As Elie enters Birkenau holding his father’s hand, he claims, “Never shall I forget the small faces of children whose bodies I saw transform into smoke under a silent sky… Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God himself. Never.” (Wiesel 34). Upon his arrival at the concentration camp in Birkenau, Elie witnesses young children being burned alive in crematoriums. He asserts that he has seen events so horrid that the memory would stay embedded with him forever. As soon as he witnesses the death of countless people, Wiesel begins to see the world as one filled with cruelty and hatred, the exact opposite of what he learns in his Jewish studies. In the end of his memoir, Elie finds himself in the hospital after being liberated by American soldiers. Elie looks into the reflection of the mirror hanging on the wall and describes what he sees as, “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 115). After experiencing such traumatic events, Wiesel refers to himself as a new person. The innocent and religious Elie slowly dies during the Holocaust. In his biographical memoir, Elie slowly changes his

At this point I was convince Eliezer wasn’t Elie anymore. That his nickname ringed in his ears with emptiness and not a trace of sweet or aching reminiscing. He already lost his foundation at first - everything he grew up to know and everyone he grew to love. If that wasn’t enough his faith in God was stomped on and all of of his passion and love, along with nearly every other emotion, was forgotten and he could no longer remember all of the happiness he felt before. His heart was hollow. All he was now was a soulless boy who was forced to be a man too

The prisoners would go to sleep every night thinking it could be their last time sleeping. Chambers, crematoriums, or even being beat to death could cause the issue of being their last day. An old women yelps on the train, “Look at the fire! Look at the flames! Over there!” (27). What are the flames and fire coming from in the shady grey sky? A crematorium, the location where any prisoner at any given time could be put into. The Jews have eventually figured out what the crematorium was, bringing their hearts to a race. The women speaks aloud once more, “Never shall I forget that smoke” (34). She is showing the scarcity that these camps had brought not only to her, but the rest of the prisoners who crusaded their ways through the awful times. Jews worked strenuously every day or else they were punished. A Jewish prisoner stated, “The construction one, where 12 hours a day I hauled heavy slabs of stone” (70). The treatment the Jews received was unfair and not right. They went through hell on the daily basis. Knowing the pain the prisoners of the Holocaust went through allows us to know the importance that we are equal and treated with the same

For example, he begins to think why would God put him through the torture and bad things that he has been through. Before, Elie believed and was very interested in his religion (Judaism). His view on his God and his religion changed because of things Elie saw, the things Elie experienced, and the things Elie thought and did. Beliefs and religion is something that is hard to manipulate and change one's feelings towards. The Holocaust had extreme effects on Elie, and which will also influence his future generations, which not only affects just Elie but the whole world because of people's beliefs towards mankind and

First Elie started to lose his faith. He wanted to believe that his mom and sister were kept safe but he was losing his faith. “We pretended for what if one of us still did believe” (Wiesel 46). He started losing his faith after him and his mom and sister got separated which has a big effect on his identity. He stayed silent in hard times. Elie was abused for no reason but he chose not to say anything about it. “As I bit my lips in order not to howl in pain” (Wiesel 53). Instead of standing up for himself, he lost his will to speak. One of the major points when he lost his identity, was when he lost his name. Elie’s identity was taken from him when they took away his name and called him by a number instead. “I became A-1137. From then one I had no other name” (Wiesel 42). When he lost his name he was no longer the same person he was before the holocaust. Elie felt like he needed to speak for all the Jews the lost their identity that couldn’t speak for

Things end up changing very slightly and quickly for Elie. At the camp, they were standing, waiting to find out whether he and his father were going to the crematoria to be burned alive along with other people and their children. Everybody was saying Kaddish, a Jewish prayer, for themselves and others, and after Elie heard his father whisper it, Elie tells the reader, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. 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?” (pg. 33) Elie was starting to lose faith in the God that he had worshipped and cherished so

Elie has adapted to his environment and adjusted to how others act around him. At the beginning of the book Elie is unaware of the horrors of the Holocaust and was in denial of the Nazi’s coming to Sighet. The author shows his further optimism when he states, “... optimism soon revived: The Germans will not come this far. They will stay in Budapest” (page 9). He drifts away from these early beliefs as his journey continues. He soon starts to realize that this experience is a terrible one, and after fighting for so long he wants to quit and he even considers suicide, “The idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate me. To no longer exist. To no longer feel the excruciating pain of my foot” (page 86). Based on this quote from the book, we see that Elie was in extreme pain and was ready to give up. Towards the end of the book, Elie gets tired of trying to save himself and his father all of the time therefore he becomes selfish and is somewhat relieved of his father’s death, the author admits this when he says, “I did not weep… I was out of tears… And deep inside of me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!” (page 112). As the books states, Elie was very impassive by the end of his journey. This demonstrates his feelings from the beginning to the end of the book and Elie’s overall self

Before Elie went to the concentration camps, he had many good character traits such as loyalty, Religious, and Impatient. For Example, on page 33, it says “If that is true then I don’t want to wait. I’ll run into the electrified barbed wire. That would be easier than a slow death in the flames” (Wiesel). During this part of the book, Elie and his dad had just arrived at Auschwitz and were being put in a line that was leading to death. Nevertheless, this shows that he is being impatient because he was facing death head on and knew that he might die so he was choosing a quick death rather than burning and slowly dying. Another trait Elie showed before the concentration camp was loyalty. For instance, on page 36, Elie stated “Please sir I’d like to be by my father” (Wiesel). In this part of the book Elie and his family were being separated at the camp and Elie lied about his age so he could stay with his dad. In contrast Elie showed loyalty to his dad by not going with his mom and sister and staying with his dad. This was a very big decision by Elie because he chose the hard way by staying with his dad even if that meant death.

The inmates eat soup while in the camp. When the time comes for them to get their bowls filled, Levi professes they “have an animal hurry” to consume their food (Survival 69). This metaphor suggests the men’s animalistic behavior due to their severe thirst and hunger. The concept of dehumanization carried out by the Schutzstaffel primarily targets the prisoners‘ “identity” and “community” (“Dehumanization”). Each man’s struggle to survive in Auschwitz depends on their principal focus of themselves. They can “no longer elicit compassion or other moral responses”, every man endures on his own, and they cannot think of others. Ironically, waiting around to pass time satisfies the inmates; “ [they] are always happy to wait” (Survival 104). Levi rationalizes their content when Alex tells them to wait and says they have “the complete obtuse inertia of spiders in old webs” (Survival 104). He compares his Kommando to spiders, as they sit lifelessly, trapped in an abandoned labyrinth. The action of waiting brings the men solace, for once, as “time moves smoothly” and they have no duties to complete (Survival 104).