Elie Wiesel’s Break of Silence

Elie Wiesel’s Break of Silence

World War II has given way to one of the most horrific events in the history of mankind: the holocaust. The holocaust was genocide of Jews, homosexuals, mentally handicapped, crippled, and gypsies. The holocaust killed more than six million Jews alone. Hitler, the leader of the German empire, and his army of Nazis and SS troops carried out the ruthless actions of the holocaust. Elie Wiesel is a Jew who went through the terror of the holocaust and its concentration camps. He tells his story in his book Night. Night reveals how Wiesel lost his family, faith, and innocence to the evil of mankind during the holocaust. Wiesel believes it is important for people today to read this book because they need to be shown how important it is not to keep silent and let something like the holocaust happen again. I agree with him.

Wiesel was born September 30, 1928. Wiesel grew up with his family in Sighet, Transylvania. Wiesel and his family were deported to the concentration camps in 1944. Wiesel was held in a few different concentration camps until the Jews were liberated in April, 1945. After Wiesel was liberated he went to a French orphanage for a few years. In 1948 he began to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. He became involved in journalism work and worked for a French newspaper called L’arche. Eventually, Wiesel began writing about his experience in the concentration camps. Wiesel has written over forty works of fiction and non-fiction. Some other well known works of Wiesel are Dawn, Day, and Jews of Silence. Some of the major awards Wiesel has earned include the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America Congressional Gold Medal, and the French Legion of Honor. There could be no one more creditable than Wiesel to write Night. He has the actual experience of being in the concentration camps and being face to face with the evil.

Night begins in Sighet, Transylvania in 1941 where Wiesel and his family lived. By 1944, Jews were forced to wear the yellow star, they had a six o’clock curfew, and they couldn’t go into certain restaurants, cafй’s, and stores. They also were sent to live in ghettos where all Jews were kept. Not to long after living in the ghetto, Wiesel and his family were transported to the death camp Auschwitz. Wiesel and his father were separated from his mother and sister when they arrived at Auschwitz. Wiesel and his father were ordered to strip naked. They had their heads shaved, and they were given new clothes. They were at Auschwitz to work. If they did not work they would be sent to the crematorium and be killed. The crematorium was where people were thrown into pits of fire to be burned alive. Wiesel and his father were given little food. They were given black coffee in the morning and bread and soup later in the day. They spent three weeks in Auschwitz; then they were transported to the concentration camp Buchenwald. Wiesel and his father were held in concentration camps for over a year before the Russian front began to move in. Buchenwald was liberated in April, 1945. Wiesel’s father died of dysentery not long before the Jews were liberated.

During the year Wiesel spent in concentration camps, he lost his faith in God, lost his innocence, and went through more terrifying things then could ever be imagined. Wiesel lost his faith in God while he was in the death camps of Auschwitz: “My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long” (68). Wiesel rebels against God and he does not understand why God is letting all of these horrible things happen to the Jewish people. The Jews are continually praising his name, even as all these