Night

1. Night Active Reading Notes and passage analysis

2. Passage Analysis • Each requires a complete sentence, and at least 2-3 sentences to fully answer. Your commentary should fully explain your response. • (1) Identify two strong words/phrases in the passage. What makes this word/phrase strong? How does it impact the audience? • (2) How does Wiesel sound(think: tone)? How does he ensure these feelings come across? • (2) What is the ultimate ‘claim’ that could be made from the passage being read and discussed? What does Wiesel want us to think after reading that specific passage?

3. Pages 3-12 • Reveals family history • Starts in 1941, he is 13-years-old • Does not know what “The Final Solution” is (proves Hitler’s agenda is very secretive) • He was deeply religious • Has 3 siblings: • 2 older sisters • 1 younger sister

4. Pages 3-12 • Moishe the Beadle • Poor child in Sighet • He is left alone often (his character development suggests that he is unloved) • Known for asking controversial questions • Why do you pray? • Elie does not know how to answer his questions. Moshe helps him to want to learn about involved religions that might help him answer that question.

5. Pages 3-12 • German power starts to be known • Foreign Jews are deported (Moishe) • Rumored to be at a labor camp; people are okay with this idea of losing rights • Sighet stops talking about the deported Jews… • The common belief: “we are safe” and “the labor camps cannot be real” • The start of developed ignornace…

6. Pages 3-12 • Moishe’s story: • He survived, by sheer happenstance • Gestapo (part of the Nazi party) stopped train, made victims dig a mass grave, and then executed the victims. • It was about fear and suffering.

7. Pages 3-12 • 1945: • People believed mass extermination was not realistic (it was so barbaric, people refused to believe the stories) • There were few witnesses and absolutely no photographic evidence • Why should they believe? • Also: • Elie asks to leave Sighet. Father refuses (he is too old). • German forces arrive shortly after this request.

8. Pages 3-12 • German officers: • Good natured, supportive • Sighet Jews refuse to believe the rumors, even mocked the rumors • In reality: Germans were taking notes, identifying the Jewish families, and establishing a need for a ghetto • He was a spy. A very likeable spy who falsely gained their trust.

9. Pages 3-12 • German forces then…. • Arrested political leaders • Placed Jewish families under house arrest (3 days) • Seen outside? Punishment was death. • Forbidden to own valuable property • Forced to wear the Star of David (the yellow star) • Could not be out of their house past 6:00PM • Could not travel • Could not go café’s or diners • THIS IS THE START OF A GHETTO.

10. Pages 3-12 Passage Analysis “He told me what happened to him and his companions. The train with the deportees had crossed the Hungarian border and, once in Polish territory, had been taken over by the Gestapo. The train had stopped. The Jews were ordered to get off and onto the waiting trucks. The trucks headed toward a forest. There everybody was ordered to get out. They were forced to dig huge trenches. When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns. This took place in the Galician forest, near Kolomay. How had he, Moishe the Beadle, been able to escape? By a miracle.”

11. Pg. 12-22 • Two ghettos created • One large and one small • Some remained in their home, others were forced to move • Families moved in to help others • Walls and barriers were built to establish segregation

12. Pg. 12-22 • Once in the ghetto… • People accepted their fate (they were alive, and were separated from the Germans… not dead) • People refused to accept that the Holocaust was occurring… even the people who would most likely be killed from it • If the victims did not believe it was true, then the same might be said of the Allied forces at war

13. Pg. 12-22 • Larger ghetto condensed to just smaller ghetto • Ghetto starts to be destroyed… the Jews of Sighet were now being transported • They do not know where. Concentration camps were not highly publicized. • President of Jewish Council does know… • Germans threaten to kill if he tells anyone.

14. Pg. 12-22 • People were loaded like cattle onto a freight train • German’s goals: • Remove freedom • “Cage” the Jews • Transport them to the camps • The Germans treated people like animals to make them feel less human.

15. Pg. 12-22 • First reference to “night” • It’s a time that is too dark to see, and thus becomes something to fear • Tomorrow (a daylight) seems to be unknown

16. Pg. 12-22 Passage Analysis “Night. No one was praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us. Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes.”

17. Pg. 23-28 • In a train, headed to Auschwitz • Largest and most deadly death camp (used labor and gas chambers) • Between 1940 and 1945, over four million people died there

18. Pg. 23-28 • Germans are psychologically trying to affect their victims by treating them as animals • Loaded into a cattle car, the symbolism was meant to deeply affect their victims • They call them “dogs”

19. Pg. 23-28 • Mrs. Schacter • Sees a fire (inside of her mind, no one else can see this fire) • She is having an anxiety attack: her friends and son are trying to calm her • Her screams could mean their death • The men tie and gag her to prevent screaming (she’s affecting them psychologically, too). She gets loose, they physically strike her. • The Holocaust victims became violent towards one another out of preservation. They have been treated like an animal, so now they are starting to act like one.

20. Pg. 23-28 • Auschwitz-Birkenau • Final destination (learned by someone reading and offering gold watch) • 1944: Auschwitz-Birkenau had been opened for four years • This proves that German propaganda to hide the truth worked: no one knew what Auschwitz was or did.

21. Pg. 23-28 Passage Analysis “The night seemed endless. By daybreak, Mrs. Schachter had settled down. Crouching in her corner, her blank gaze fixed on some faraway place, she no longer saw us.”

22. Pg. 29-37 • At Auschwitz-Birkenau: • “Men to the left, women to the right.” • This is the last he saw of his mother, his younger sister • This is the selection process: • Determining who will live and who will die

23. Pg. 29-37 • An old man gives advice to avoid being “selected”: • Elie is OLDER than he actually is • Shlomo (his father) is YOUNGER than he actually is

24. Pg. 29-37 • The old man becomes angry due to their confusion • The Wiesel’s were too innocent/ignorant to know or to recognize the danger that they were in. • The old man is insulted – he has been there for a while. No one has come to save him from the Holocaust. Them not knowing anything proves to the old man that no one will be coming.

25. Pg. 29-37 • Dr. Mengele • “cruel, though not intelligent, face, complete with a monocle” • Determined who was “selected” with his cane • Known as the Angel of Death • LEFT: you are put to work • RIGHT: crematoria

26. Pg. 29-37 • SS officers search for “stronger men” • Kommando: German word for detachment, here a detachment of concentration camp prisoners at forced labor • A similar role to a Kommando was… • Kapos: a concentration camp prisoner selected to oversee other prisoners on labor details. The term is often used generically for any concentration camp prisoner whom the SS gave authority over other prisoners.

27. Pg. 29-37 • Arrival process: • Selection • Barracks • Loss of clothes • Loss of possessions • Barber: loss of hair • Disinfectant • Running in the snow/cold – further psychological attacks • Clothes given

28. Pg. 27-37 Passage Analysis “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God himself. Never.”

29. Pg. 37-46 • One NIGHT from arrival: • Last image of mother and sister • Man shot and killed • Infant bodies in grave • Crematoria • Shaved, freezing, degraded

30. Pg. 37-46 • Passes under gate of Auschwitz: ArbeitMachtFrei • “Work makes you free” • Literal translation: you work yourself to death, and in death you are free of the oppression. • They encouraged their victims to hope for death.

31. Pg. 37-46 • All Holocaust victims bear a tattoo. • Nazi’s numbered their victims to ensure that they were able to keep track of how many victims were murdered. • Continuation of de-humanization • Elie: A-7713

32. Pg. 37-46 • Stein: relative of the Wiesel’s • His only reason to live is finding his family • He is always asking for any person who can verify that they are still alive • Once he discovers the truth, that they are dead, we never see him again. • The understanding is that he had no reason to live without his family being there. He lost his will to survive. • It’s an inference with deeply-rooted understanding in survival.

33. Pg. 37-46 • Elie and a few hundred others were then taken to the next location: Buna • A sub-camp of Auschwitz (aka: Auschwitz III)

34. Pg. 37-46 Passage Analysis “In the afternoon, they made us line up. Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments. We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table. The three ‘veteran’ prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.”

35. Pg.47-54 Victims of the Holocaust were intentionally starved, while the leaders of the camp were obese Holocaust victims would trade food and clothing with the perpetrators for additional rights

36. Pg. 47-54 • Rumors also swirled about some of the leaders of the camp about inappropriate actions with children • It was thought that some of the leaders engaged in sex trafficking with young boys at the time. • This is a further extension of human trafficking: illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery

37. Pg.47-54 • Dentists made notes about those with gold fillings in their teeth • It was about who had “money in their mouth” • It was about greed • Basic human emotion • Driving factor of hate • Not always money related, but often connected

38. Pg. 47-54 Passage Analysis “A few days after my visit, the dentist’s office was shut down. He had been thrown into prison and was about to be hanged. It appeared that he had been dealing in the prisoners’ gold teeth for his own benefit. I felt no pity for him. In fact, I was pleased with what was happening to him: my gold crown was safe. It could be useful to me one day, to buy something, some bread or even some time to live. At that moment in time, all that mattered to me was my daily bowl of soup, my crust of stale bread. The bread, the soup – those were my entire life. I was nothing but a body. Perhaps even less: a famished stomach. The stomach alone was measuring time.”

39. Pg. 54-65 • Elie discusses Idek and other German leaders who physically beat the prisoners at Buna during “times of madness” • Elie is attacked most often for being in the wrong place at the wrong time • When guards were angry, they released their anger on the prisoners with no reason (Elie’s first recount, he crossed in front of Idek – nothing else)

40. Pg.54-65 • Elie’s father and their relationship • Elie loves him dearly, tries to help him as often as possible • Elie forfeited his gold tooth to save his father from Franek’s constant assaults • Removed with a rusty spoon in the latrines • Lost his tooth for nothing, he was transferred two weeks later

41. Pg. 54-65 • One day, before his transfer, on the day he was not scheduled to work, Idek forced everyone to work. • During the time he worked, Idek was nowhere to be found • Elie found Idek, in the back of a warehouse with a young girl • Idek forced hundreds to work so that he could sleep with a girl • Elie laughs at the notion – it was that ridiculous • Idek swears revenge on Elie

42. Pg. 54-65 • Elie is called forward with his ID number, placed on a crate, and is whipped 25 times • Elie fainted from the pain • Afterwards, Idek threatens Elie with more whipping if he ever reveals what he saw • INFERENCE: Idek was breaking a camp law, and if he was found out – he could face punishment similar to the greedy dentist

43. Pg. 54-65 • During an air raid at Buna, prisoners are required to be confined to their block • Two cauldrons of soup are left unattended • Everyone stares in extreme hunger, but only one man was brave enough to attempt to eat the food • He reached the cauldron, and then was shot dead before he could eat the food. • The only man who died during the air raid was this man.

44. Pg. 54-65 • A week after the bombing, the Nazi’s create a “gallow” in the central square to hang a man who attempted to steal during the air raid • The narrative discusses 2 of the other prisoners in depth: • One is suspect is involved with the resistance • One is a young boy (thepipel) who was the servant of a resistance member

45. Pg. 54-65 • The prisoners seemingly never cry as they are always in pain. The boy’s death brought them all to tears. • When being hung, you die from your weight pulling down and snapping your neck. The boy was too light. He suffocated to death as he strangled himself at the end of the noose. • Starts a discussion on God and faith in relation to the Holocaust

46. Pg. 54-65 Passage Analysis “And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished.”

47. Pg. 66-75 • Elie is angry and confused about God • Wants to know why he should pray: he was targeted and oppressed. To him, a just God would never let this happen. • You must understand, Elie struggled with his faith because he suffered physically to no end.

48. Pg. 66-75 • By the end of 1944: • Elie begins to struggle and rebel against religious traditions: he eats on a day of fasting to prove his lack of faith

49. Pg. 66-75 • Dr. Mengele and the selection: • Nazi’s executed anyone who had become too frail or too weak. • Others were kept alive as they could still work (… still suffer) • Both Elie and his father pass the selection. • He does not stop to think about those who did not pass, he is too thankful to be alive. • The Holocaust has changed him… he is no longer compassionate.

50. Pg. 66-75 Passage Analysis “I did not fast. First of all, to please my father who had forbidden me to do so. And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him. And I nibbled on my crust of bread. Deep inside me, I felt a great void opening.”