Night 5

The Holocaust was one of the most events that the human race has ever endured. It evolved around cruelty, hatred, death, destruction and prejudice. During world war two, millions of innocent lives were lost in Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jewish population. He killed thousands of Jews by way of gas chamber, crematorium, and starvation. The people who managed to survive in the concentration camps were those who valued not just their own life but others as well. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author of the novel, Night expressed his experiences very descriptively throughout his book. When Elie was just fifteen years old his family was shipped off to the concentration camps where they were separated from each other. He and his father manage to stay together, which was a small sense of comfort in a very uncomfortable situation. At one point in the book, Elie considers running for the electric fence to avoid the long agonizing death he thought was inevitable. However, Elie thinks of how he could not leave his father to be alone and he decides against it. In a sense, his father is his motivation to keep fighting for his life. Elie found purpose through his undying love and compassion for his father. When driven by emotions and given a purpose one can survive even in the worst of conditions.
            Elie and his father both experience change throughout the course of the book. Elie mentions early on that his father is rather unsentimental and never displays emotion, even at home. It is not until Elie's father returns home from a meeting with news of the Germans planning to deport the Jews living in Sighet, that emotion was present in Elie's father. Elie's family lined up on the curb the next day waiting for the Hungarian police's signal to move out. At this point, the Jews did not know where they were going and Elie had managed to stay optimistic but he began to change his feelings when he saw his father's tears. The tears were the first stage of change...