FREE ESSAY ON THE HOLOCAUST'S EFFECTS ON WIESEL

THE HOLOCAUST'S EFFECTS ON WIESEL

The Effects of the Holocaust
On Wiesel's Faith
In early 1944 the town of Sighet, Transylvania was overran by the Nazi war regime as it
rapidly expanded across Europe and parts of Asia. In this town a young religious man
named Elie Wiesel was questioning the intent of the German army and the rumors that were
circling about them. Although he had heard that the Germans were planning mass genocide
of the Jewish race, the common feeling throughout the town was that Hitler could never
exterminate every Jew. Early in Wiesel's Night, he recounts his experiences in the
Holocaust and he expresses his undying faith and belief that god would never allow
Hitler's regime to run its course. When the Nazi army finally reached the town of Signet,
the Jews were forced from their homes and relocated into the town's gettos. It was the
seventh day of Passover, and according to Wiesel, "the race towards death had begun."1
The Jews were slowly removed from the large getto of Sighet and shipped to the smaller,
"holding" getto where they were separated according to sex, age, and physical ability,
and prepared for shipment to Auschwitz. The day that Wiesel and his family were to be
moved to the smaller getto of Signet, Wiesel demonstrates his faith in God by awaking
early to perform his daily prayers. As he prepared to leave his home he said, "I looked
at our house, where I had spent so many years in my search for God; in fasting in order
to hasten the coming of the Messiah; in imagining what my life would be like. Yet I felt
little sorrow."2 This passage is symbolic of his first parting with his faith in God. Yet
he still believed in God, he was beginning to understand that a God should not let mass
extermination happen to his people. While he was sub-consciencly loosing his faith in
God, he still felt that there was strength in humanity and that human morals would never
allow the burning of Jews. Upon Wiesel's arrival at Auschwitz he caught his first glimpse
of the crematories he exclaimed to his father, "I [do] not believe that they can burn
people in our age...humanity would never tolerate it."3 Yet after his father convinced
him of the horrible truth his faith in god could never be restored.
Wiesel's father, after fully realizing the full horror of the concentration camps, said a
small prayer to God, and to this Elie reacted with utter defiance. "For the first time, I
felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the
Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?"4
Although Wiesel still believed in the presence of God, he felt that in God's silence he
was defying the Jews and their faith in him. How could someone you are so devoted to be
absent in your greatest time of need? Wiesel said that he sympathized with Job, and I
feel that the similarities between Wiesel and Job are numerous. Both were very religious
men who put their faith before all other, and yet both found that their faith brought
them nothing but suffering. Both felt that they deserved a more peaceful and humane
existence because of their undying devotion, yet both lived in the cruelest situations
for some time. Wiesel felt that man was stronger that god because throughout the
Holocaust his fellow prisoners continued to praise God and believed that God allowed the
Holocaust in order to benefit the Jews in some strange way. Wiesel felt that because of
all the torture that the Jews were subjected to their continued praise proved that they
were ignorant to the fact that God was not a source of supreme justice. Wiesel continued
to despise God for the remainder of the Holocaust, yet from this new independence he
found power. "I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused...I was terribly
alone in a world without god and without man."5