Elie Wiesel, Night and the Holocaust

Elie Wiesel, Night and The Holocaust

 Elie Wiesel is Jewish; he was born in Hungary in 1923.  ln 1944, when he was 15, he and his mother, father, and sister Tzipora were deported to Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald.  When Elie Wiesel was liberated from Buchenwald in April 1945, he imposed a 10 year vow of silence upon himself before he would tell the world about what happened to him and millions of other Jews.  Night, his first book, is an autobiographical account of his experiences in the Nazi death and concentration camps.  For the first ten years after his liberation, he lived in France; he then moved to Israel and The United States, where he has lived since 1956.  He has written over. 20 books, including A Beggar in Jerusalem, which won the French Prix Medici for 1969.  He has been Andrew Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University since 1976.  ln 1985, he received the Congressional Gold Medal.  His life has been devoted to writing and speaking about the Holocaust, with the aim of making sure that it is never forgotten.  He was a principal force behind the establishment of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.  Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986

Some Jewish Religious Terms Found in the Novel:

 Mystic- one who seeks divine, spiritual knowledge, especially by prayer or contemplation  Hasidism- Jewish sect devoted to mysticism. Hasidism emphasizes the positive value of ife; one must have an optimistic and joyous orientation in this life.  Kabbalah- secret teachings, which involve union with the divine realm; such experiences are not described in term's of rational, intellectual processes but are usually the result of intense meditation.  Talmud- the compilation of clarifications and expansions of statements in the Mishna  Mishna-the collection of rabbinic laws including standardized religious practice and interpretations of God's law.  Zionism- a political program leading to the establishment and development of the Jewish national homeland in Israel.  Shekhinah – the personified spirit of Israel.  Zohar- book on mysticism

The Holocaust

I. Germany before The Holocaust

 Germany was the first nation to achieve universal adult literacy.  Jews gave all their finest efforts to Germany and helped make her great  From its beginning in 1933, the Nobel Peace prize was won more by. Germany than any other country Jews won about 1/3 of Germany's Nobel Peace Prizes and they provided for ½ of the prizes in medicine.

II. Anti~Sernitism and Adolph Hitler

 Anti-Semitism- hostility or discrimination against Jews.  Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist Workers' Party' (Nazis), was in power in Germany during the time of The Holocaust.  Hitler was born in Austria in 1889. His father was anti-Semitic, and Hitler was exposed to anti-Semitism throughout his youth. Jews became his lifelong obsession.  Hitler believed and taught that there was a political and military threat from Jews, and that Jews were responsible for Germany's problems. He also believed in a deeper, biological threat from any contact with members of the Jewish race.  Hitler considered the Jews a dark, inferior race corrupting the German blood.  Hitler achieved his greatest success with university students; Nazis effectively controlled campuses 2-3 years before they' took over the country.  Students were among the first to organize boycotts and mass petitions to force Jews out of the professions and government. These forms of action quickly turned to violence.  Hitler never had any trouble finding intellectual backing for his anti-Semitism.

III. The Progression of The Holocaust

 · September 15, 1935 The Nuremberg Decrees- These laws began the process of stripping Jews of their basic rights and separating them from the rest of the population. At this time, the first concentration camp had opened at Dachau.  · By 1938, the economic power of the Jews had been destroyed; Jews were expelled from all schools.  · *1939~Unemployed Jews were pushed into forced labor. With the beginning of the war, movement of Jews was restricted, their ration cards were stamped with a  · *1940~All allowances for Jews were abolished by law.  · *194l~All Jews age 6 and up were forced to wear a Star of David.  · The Holocaust (Hitler's "Final Solution") operated based on working Jews to death.

IV. Hitler's "Final Solution"

 · There were 1,634 concentration camps and over 900 labor camps.  · *6 camps were deliberately planned for mass slaughter on an industrial scale:  Auschwitz, Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobidor, Majdanek, and Belzec  · Before The Holocaust, there were 8,861,800 Jews in European countries directly or indirectly under Hitler's control  · Nazis killed approximately 6,000,000-about 67%'.  · In Poland, 90% of the Jews were killed

V. Escaping The Holocaust

 · Although the Germans and the rest of the world did very little to protest about what was being done to the Jews, there were exceptions.  · In Berlin, several thousand of the city's Jews escaped by going underground with the help of non Jews.  · Denmark managed to save the majority of its Jews by smuggling them to Sweden in fishing boats.  · *Oskar Schindler's labor camp actually served as a safe haven for over 1,000 Jews

VI. Some Terms and Characters to Know:

Kapo Juliek Beadle Yellow star YossiIdek Schutzstaffel Aryan Rabbi Eliahou Franek Rosh Hashanah Madame Schachter Selectionn Autobiography Dr. Mengele Gestapo French Jewess Meir Buna Creamatorium Yom Kippur Kaddish Moshe Ghetto Nazi Singhet Chlomo