Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel (born 1928)

Night: Genre

Genre Memoir

World War II and Holocaust

Night: Setting

setting (time) · 1941–1945, during World War II

settings (place) ·

Eliezer’s story begins in Sighet, Transylvania (now part of Romania; during Wiesel’s childhood, part of

Hungary)

The book then follows his journey through several concentration camps in Europe: Auschwitz/Birkenau (in a part of modern-day Poland that had been annexed by Germany

in 1939)

Buna (a camp that was part of the Auschwitz complex) Gleiwitz (also in Poland but annexed by Germany) Buchenwald (Germany)

Hungary was one of the last countries that Hitler conquered. Thus, the book begins in 1941.

Setting: Social Conditions

o Foreign Jews expelled and killed.

o Nazis bunked in Jewish homes, distant yet polite – giving a false sense of security

o Closing of synagogues

o Arrest of Jewish community leaders

o Jews confined to their homes for three days.

o Hungarian police confiscated gold, jewelry, and other objects of value.

o Jews ghettoized inside barbed wire.

o Jews taken for forced labor and deported to Poland to concentration and death camps.

Night : Tone

Tone Eliezer’s perspective is limited to his own experience, and

the tone of Night is, therefore, intensely personal, subjective, and intimate.

Night is not meant to be an all-encompassing discourse on the experience of the Holocaust; instead, it depicts the extraordinarily personal and painful experiences of a single victim.

Night : Symbols

Symbols Fire

Fire appears throughout Night as a symbol of the Nazis' cruel power.

Night Night always occurs when suffering is worst, and its

presence reflects Eliezer's belief that he lives in a world without God.

Motifs

Night –what happens at night and what might that symbolize?

Bearing Witness – Which characters are witnesses and to what do they bear witness?

Father-son Relationships – How does Elie and his father’s relationship develop? Notice other father-son relationships in the memoir.

Loss of Faith – Notice how Elie’s faith in God changes as the book progresses. Where do these changes occur?

Voice vs. Silence – Who has a voice and who chooses to remain silent? Why might Elie Wiesel title his novel what he did originally (And the World Has Remained Silent), and why did he no longer remain silent?

Themes

Themes Eliezer's Struggle to Maintain Faith in a Benevolent God Silence Man’s Inhumanity Toward Man The Importance of Father-Son Bonds

Publication Background

Wiesel first wrote a 900-page text in Yiddish titled Un di Velt Hot Geshvign (And the World Remained Silent).

The work later evolved into the much-shorter French publication La Nuit (1958), which was then translated into English as Night.

Legacy of Night

Memoir has been published in more than 30 languages.

Wiesel has received more than 100 honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning.

He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

He has also been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal and the Medal of Liberty Award.

President Jimmy Carter appointed him as chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust.

He also became the founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Shortly after receiving the Nobel Prize, he and his wife, Marion, established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, an organization dedicated to combating indifference, intolerance, and injustice though international dialogues and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding, and equality.

A God Who Remembers