Thoughts on Elie Wiesel's "Night"
Uploaded by Bag puss on Jan 17, 2006
“To hate would be to reduce myself” is what Elie Wiesel told Opera in an interview. After all Wiesel had been through during the holocaust, he could not bring himself to hate. He demonstrates his respect for all human kind through his written work and public speeches; he understands the key interactions needed to make a society run. “Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone – and, ultimately, hating himself or herself.” By following this statement Elie Wiesel came to terms with the atrocities that were brought down upon him and lives his life with compassion today. Elie Wiesel said, “Thou shalt not stand idly by.” He himself does not stand idly by; he is very active in the international community in places like Africa, where people are being oppressed. Where there is a call for help, Elie Wiesel is there to hear and to aid in stopping it. His personal account of the holocaust Night outlines his feelings about good and evil, God and his father during their captivity in the concentration camps.
Good usually prevails over evil, or does it? Many gross atrocities were committed against the Jews for no good reason. At the first concentration camp, Buna, Elie witnessed babies being thrown into a pit and burned without being knocked out. The German officers just burned the babies, a symbol of complete innocence, in large pits like they were firewood and did not heed to their cries of fear and anguish. Another incident of conflict between good and evil is when Elie sees his kapo with the Polish girl and laughs. The next day Elie is called out and is whipped 10 times, the kapo used Elie as a scapegoat in front of all the other prisoners and humiliated and demoralized him because he had caught the kapo performing an immoral act, since the kapo and Elie already had conflicts with each other. A blatant example of good versus evil exists when the German’s make the prisoners go on an impossible run through the country. The German’s killed anyone who could not keep up, and made the prisoners run without food or water. During this time people had little to keep their moral high and were further demoralized by the Germans. In the end, the Jewish people were liberated, but they went through so much just to prove the statement that good always prevails over...