The Holocaust

and Night

The story of Night

• The novel begins in Sighet, Transylvania.• During the early years of World War II, Sighet remained relatively unaffected by the war. • The Jews in Sighet believed that they would be safe from the persecution that Jews in Germany and Poland suffered.

• In 1944, however, Elie and all the other Jews in town were rounded up in cattle cars and deported to concentration camps in Poland. • They were sent to Auschwitz

Former prisoners of the "little camp" in Buchenwald stare out from the wooden bunks in which they slept three to a "bed." Elie Wiesel is pictured in the second row of bunks, seventh from the left, next to the vertical beam

• After surviving the Nazi concentration camps, Wiesel vowed never to write about his horrific experiences.• He eventually changed his mind and wrote Night in 1955. Wiesel won the Nobel Prize in 1986 

 A German police officer examines the identification papers of Jews in the Krakow ghetto, circa 1941.

Jewish people were identified by the

triangle and their ID #.

Jews, like all other German citizens, were required to carry identity cards, but their cards were stamped with a red “J.” This allowed police to easily identify them.

•Many camps had dead bodies lying in piles “like cordwood.”•Many prisoners died even after liberation.

•Most prisoners were emaciated to the point of being skeletal

http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/200011/omag_200011_elie.jhtml