Monday, November 16, 2009
Finishing Thoughts on Night
Use this post to blog about something you learned through your reading and discussing of the memoir Night. This “something” doesn’t need to be a fact learned through class about history (although it can be). In what way are you walking away from the book knowing, emotionally or intellectually, something new?
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After reading the book Night, I realized that things like this not only really did happen, but were really hard to get through. It shows how after a tragic situation like this happens, it takes a while for the person experiencing it to cope with their losses and move on. After reading a book like this, it really opens readers eyes to show them realizations of events like this. Also, it makes you remember that genocides are currently going on today and that you would never want it happening to our country. It shows how hard this was to deal with and that lives were being lost everyday. This book also made me think that our country should be more aware of things like this occuring daily. This book is an eye opener and made readers realize these are important topics shouldn't be left alone.
I agree with the comment that was written. I think that terrible things do happen and yes they are very hard to get through. I think people may feel invincible to things like this. People don't realize that this kind of thing like the Holocaust actually happens. You don't think that something really bad can happen to you until you see it happen. I believe that reading this book by Elie Wiesel really shows you that people are capable of tereible things. The book teaches us how these things happen and how we can handle them.
At the end of the book, you finally realize about how harsh it was during this time. Elie even wrote that he did not notice himself, when he was looking at himself through a mirror. Elie was extremely skinny and dirty because of the small food portions and the poor conditions of the camps in general. Night also tells us that a genocide can happen anywhere on earth, at any time. This book was really effective to the reader, because Elie was part of this, and he described what was actually happening.
After reading the book Night, something about my opinion on faith changed. Elie had faith in the beginning of the novel, but at the end he changed to having none. He was very religious and devoted much of his time to praying and learning about his religion. You could say his faith was very strong. He was very sure of his faith at a young age. The Holocaust and everything he witnessed during the Holocaust broke his faith little by little.
Elie had faith. Elie lost faith. Elie found faith. Elie’s experience with his faith taught me what faith really is. Your faith in anything can change at anytime, whether you decide to change it or it changes by itself. Faith makes you strong and determined. I think Elie’s faith made him hang on a little longer and try not to give up so easily unlike other people who did and died quicker because they lost it. Elie’s faith strengthened my faith I guess I could say.
After completing Night by Elie Wiesel, I learned just how hard the Holocaust or any genocide is on a person who has to be a part of it. While I learned about the Holocaust before, I never got the chance to learn the affect it had on the people who had to endure it. Because Night is a memoir, it really gives you an idea about just how bad it was on the people like Elie, even after it's end.
When reading night the events of the holocaust began more present and more influencial as we got into the detail of the story. The holocaust some people think of it in terms of a story than an actual event that occured in history. History that only occured a couple decades ago. Us as humans seem to push away, sometimes not intentionally, but push away events that cause pain to us. We seem to undermine the fact the people died because of there religion, nothing else. This thought alone makes us want to make the real unreal and allow ourseleves to forget that real people died in here and that some of them still live with a story to tell like Elie Weisel. Books like this especailly make us come to the realization that genocides are currently present in the world. We again seem to undermine them just as we sometimes, though not intentionaly, also do to the holocaust. These events and past events should not be forgotten instead they should be learned from for the future.
There are many different things that you could leave with after reading night. The most important thing that I took away from this was to believe. If Elie or his father had given up with all their hopes, then they would have died very easily. Ofcourse most of the people probably thought that the war was going to end soon and thought they just had to hold out till then with hope or not, it did not happen that way. Soon the Jews came to realize that the war wasn't going to end soon. This made many Jews give up right there. Some of those Jews did live longer, but there was probably only a few, if any, that surrvived. Elie had taught us to believe that everything will be okay even though you think that it can't get worse. He taught us that family is the most important thing in the world, especially when you are going through a hard time. He told us what would probably happen if you LET go of your family in a harsh world. The things that Elie had taught us are very important for life. Even if he didn't mean to teach us these valuable lessons, he has and we should all take them and remind ourselves of these lessons when we encounter hard situations in life.
my overall thoughts on Night were that i thought that the book was composed very well and it was great at getting right down to the point, in that it did not glorify anything and told it like it was. i feel one of the reasons that i liked this book was that i like to read about other people and thier struggles because i find that it makes me more thankful for everything that we have now. the book also makes me feel that first world countries are not living up to thier potentials becuase they arent stopping current genocides that are happening in distand countries. i have no clue why they arent doing anything but i thought they would have learned from past expieriences but i guess not. after reading the book i feel deply sorry for all of the families and people who had to go through this, the nazis may have killed roughly 11 million people (not including war deaths) but they have riuned the lives of so many more. i hope that something like this never happens again and i feel that this book was sucessful in trying to persuede people to take action
After reading the book, Night ,I had learned about how people coped with the situation that a genocide as horrible as the Holocaust was taking place, and about a documentary based upon an actual experience in that time. It was horrendous the ways that were thought up and used to murder so many Jewish people and it had brought realization of why these innocent people were murdered and tortured and how did this help to accomplish Nazi Germany’s goal. This type of genocide had made me learn of the horrible ways people can do to destroy one another based on minor and non-related traits. People should learn from mistakes of the past and avoid them, instead of repeating them.When world war 1 was won by the United States they signed a document to end all war, but a few decades later world war 2 had started and was more devestating than before. In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel talks about the way everyone had accepted resentfully to allow themselves to be victims the prison. If people were so easily tricked then, what prevents us from allowing an action like this to take place and how would we be able to prevent it.
In agreement to Becca's response I learned a little bit about faith and what it means. I think the Holocaust was the ultamite test of faith from God. I think because Elie kept faith longer then others, he lived to tell the story. Elie definitely sends a message about keeping faith in his novel "Night" in which he almost resembles the position of a dicsiple; he lives to write about/ teach others about his experience with faith. This novel supports my opinion that faith is a journey with God. God was with them the whole time and those with the most faith were saved; of course most werent even given a chance, but the way the Jewish people had been transported is kind of like a journey, a horrific journey. Elie tells his story so something like this never happens again but also to guide us to have faith.
Elie Wiesel taught us many things in his personal memoir, Night. We have learned many lessons but I believe that the most important one is the lesson Elie gave us on forgiveness. He was put through hell during his time at the concentration camp Auchwitz. He had the strength to forgive the Nazis and ignore the anger that he felt. In our everyday lives we get angry at insignificant things and we can't use the same skill that Wiesel used to forgive his opressers. We can use Night as an educational tool to forgive those around us.
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