Night Elie Wiesel

Elie was born September 30th 1928 in Sighet Romania He is Jewish a young boy about 15-16 years old. He is deeply devoted to his study about Judaism. He is very religious prays night and day, and wants to learn more and gain a deeper side to his God Elie’s Father Shlomo, is a shopkeeper and a very prominent man in the Jewish community.

Setting The Novel is set in WW II when the Nazis are in control of most of Europe. Sighet is a town in Transylvania now found in Romania. Hungry had aligned itself with Germany in hope to regain territory lost in WWI. Transylvania was given back to Hungry. As a result all Jews were segregated and later expelled from Romania. It is Spring of 1944 about 15,000 Jews are deported to concentration camps

Concentration Camps Auschwitz – Buchenwald Buna

Themes Throughout the Novel Death – The presence of Death looms throughout the novel Family and Community – Not wanting to be separated from each other. The burden a family member can have on others.

Anti -Semitism Aryan Race This is the term given to political, social and economic agitation against Jews. In simple terms it means ‘Hatred of Jews’. Aryan Race This was the name of what Hitler believed was the perfect race. These were people with full German blood, blonde hair and blue eyes.

Genocide Is the deliberate and systematic extermination of a race or cultural.

Between 1939 and 1945 six million Jews were murdered, along with hundreds of thousands of others, such as Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, disabled and the mentally ill.

A German policeman shoots individual Jewish women who remain alive in the ravine after the mass execution.

SS Tactics: Dehumanisation The SS guards who murdered the Jews were brainwashed with Anti- Semitic propaganda. The Jews were transported in cattle cars in terrible conditions. Naked, dirty and half starved people look like animals, which helped to reinforce the Nazi propaganda. The SS used to train their new guards by encouraging them to set fire to a pit full of live victims – usually children.

The SS would try and pack up to 2000 people into this gas chamber The Gas Chambers The Nazis would force large groups of prisoners into small cement rooms and drop canisters of Zyklon B, or prussic acid, in its crystal form through small holes in the roof. These gas chambers were sometimes disguised as showers or bathing houses. The SS would try and pack up to 2000 people into this gas chamber

The Ovens at Dachau

Destruction Through Work These photos were taken by the Nazis to show just how you could quite literally work the fat of the Jews by feeding them 200 calories a day

Destruction Through Work 6 weeks later