- After the forced march, the prisoners are crammed into a barracks. That night Juliek plays a fragment of a Beethoven concerto on the violin he has managed to keep the entire time he was at Auschwitz. What do you think prompts Juliek to play that evening? What does the music mean to Eliezer? To the other prisoners who hear the sounds? To Juliek?
- Eliezer later states, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me anymore.” What does he mean by these words? What do they suggest about his struggle to maintain his identity?
- In the next to the last sentence in the book, Eliezer says that when he looked in a mirror after liberation, he saw a corpse gazing back at him. He ends the book by stating, “The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.” What does he mean by that statement?
- Why is it important to Eliezer to remember? To tell you his story? How has he tried to keep you from responding to his story the way he and his father once responded to the one told by Moshe the Beadle? How successful has he been?
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Consider how prisoners struggle to maintain their identity under extraordinary conditions.
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In Wiesel’s one year account of the Nazi concentration camps, we see many people lose their identities, becoming nothing more than human bodies. Starvation causes many victims to take part in behavior that they would not regularly take part in, such as committing acts of violence. While starving and cramped in a wagon, “dozens of starving men fought each other to the death for a few crumbs” (95). Eliezer is very bothered by this behavior, and is strong enough not to take part in it. He focuses himself more on keeping his father alive and staying together as a family. After he loses his father, Eliezer says “nothing could touch me any more” (107). His life then focuses only on survival, and although he does not resort to extreme violence, he still loses himself. His identity was kept alive during the times with his father, but his father’s death marked the extermination of his past. All he was left with was the aim to survive the days ahead of him.
ReplyDelete-Leah
Physiological needs such as the need to satisfy hunger and thirst are life necessities that lay the foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Myers). When deprived of food and water, our minds become occupied with schemes of getting them. To maintain one’s identity was as difficult as to find an extra piece of bread to keep oneself alive. While he was in the camp, Eliezer suffered from starvation. Just like Maslow believes, a person cannot advance up the hierarchy of needs unless he has satisfied the basic needs. Eliezer told us that “I now took little interest in anything except my daily plate of soup and my crust of stale bread” (50). I agree with Leah that without freedom, Eliezer could do nothing beside to focus on survival. He tried as hard as he could to keep his identity such as his luggage, boots and gold crown tooth. However, under such extreme circumstances he could not hold on to his external possessions. Everything was limited. They were not allowed to perform religious practices or play German Beethoven. Preserving one’s identity is crucial to start a new life after the concentration camp. However, just like Eliezer said, hope is like a germ that kills them alive (13).
ReplyDeletePaul S.
Eliezer does not see his own reflection from the time he leaves the ghettos to the time that he is liberated. During this time, he changes immensely, both physically and mentally. He becomes weak, as does everyone in the concentration camps, as his emotion and strength is drained. As Paul said, the people in the concentration camps begin to care only about food and survival. They become animals that are unconcerned with now petty things such as manners or generosity. When he looks in the mirror at the end of the book, Eliezer sees someone he does not recognize, someone with emotions and values so different from the person he embodied before the deportation. It would have been near impossible to maintain a solid identity throughout his experience in the camps, as all of his energy had to be put into surviving. “I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach” (50). Physically, Eliezer does not die, but mentally and emotionally, he is dead long before the liberation. Gazing at himself in the mirror is like an awakening to and realization of all of the things he has been through and what they have forced him to become.
ReplyDelete-Deirdre
After everything Eliezer went through, it seems only normal that he felt like he could give up everything after his father died. He was all that was left of his family. Eliezer struggled to keep his father alive for the longest time, seeing him almost get chosen to be taken away multiple times. By the end, Eliezer didn't even have the strength to support him and his father, and at first it seemed to him that a weight was lifted off his shoulders when his father died.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't feel the same anymore and had trouble believing who he had become. He never thought he would wish his father would die so he would only have to struggle for his own survival, not his fathers as well. So much was thrown at him that made him question his religion and what made the Jews the promised people. Eliezer's experience through the holocaust greatly affected his view on himself and really made him understand what it was like for everything you were to die.
-Sam S
I think that Juliek was prompted to play his violin for similar reasons as Lisa played the piano in The Children of Wilesden Lane. It was comforting to the children to play something from before the war. It was a way to focus their thoughts away from their pain and fear. I think Juliek plays his violin the evening in the barrack because it is the only hope he has left. He thought he was going to die, so to focus his energy elsewhere alleviates the pain and puts him at peace. I think that the music symbolizes hope to Eliezer because someone was willing to carry the instrument throughout the whole journey and use their energy on something other than pure survival. I think it gave him hope that he could survive because all he had to do was rest, not play or carry the violin. When Eliezer hears the violin he, is amazed at Juliek. He says, “[He] never heard sounds so pure” (90). I think to the others the music was soothing. It was a reminder of times before the war, of home. Like it may have to Eliezer, the music probably gave the other hope and a sense of calm. The music was also a way for Juliek to maintain his identity through the camps. He was not just another body; he had an instrument, he had music, he had something to give.
ReplyDelete-Ellery
While, as Ellery wrote, some managed to hold onto hope and humanity, many lost hold of their identities. Juliek kept his violin until he died and Eliezer struggled to support his father, and by doing so each held onto a part of who he was. In the camps, when given a number to replace his name, a prisoner could still maintain loyalty to his family and feel a sense of hope for the survival of loved ones. A prisoner’s identity thus was kept alive. However, lack of food and increasingly terrible conditions let to the degradation of humanity. As Paul and Deirdre said, each day became a fight for basic survival rather than an attempt to live up to a moral code. Eliezer himself faltered and nearly lost a hold on his identity, wishing that he might lose his father and be rid of obligation to care for him. That he even had a father is something he had to remind himself of (“And the I remembered that I had a father… at the same moment this thought came into my mind: ‘Don’t let me find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival” (101)). Eliezer immediately felt ashamed for this thought, but it shows how close he came to losing part of his own identity.
ReplyDeleteIt is tremendously important for Eliezer to remember what happened and to tell us his story. When Mrs. Mazmanian came to visit us she told us that we should never forget where we came from. If Eliezer chose to forget his story then he would be forgetting where he came from and who he was. He would be forgetting how hard he fought to survive in order to keep his identity. Like Paul said he tried so hard to keep hold of his possessions that identified him, but they were taken from him so all he had was his story and his past.
ReplyDeleteWhen Moshe the Beadle told Eliezer and his father his story he was seen as “a madman” (5). Moshe the Beadle just wanted the other Jews to believe what he saying so that they could prepare for what was coming. He was pressuring these people to believe him but they would not. Eliezer then asked him “Why are you so anxious that people should believe what you say? In your place, I shouldn’t care whether they believed me or not…” (5). When Eliezer told his story it seems as though he does not care if the audience believes what he says, he does not apply any pressure to believe. I think he allows us to believe what we want.
-Britt
I think Britt makes a valid point. I think that in Eliezer's situation, it was harder for him to hold onto his identity. Eliezer understood the importance of his identity and therefore he embraced his religion. But, with all of the chaos, he began loosing faith, which in a way, was like where he believed he came from. Therefore, if he lost faith in God, then he would loose himself. He kept questioning whether God was really there, and he became confused. Eliezer understands that his religion is a part of who he is, and that he must never forget where he came from, and that's what helped inspire him to write the book. Throughout Night, there are scenes that convey his extreme devotion to God, even throughout the questioning of His existence. But, I think that the fact that Eliezer never lost faith throughout the confusion is enough to show that he believes in Mrs. Mazmanian’s message to never forget where we come from.
ReplyDeleteI think that both Britt and Rachel made great points about why it was so difficult for Eliezer to maintain his own identity. Being a prisoner and stripped of your loved ones and even your personal possessions can leave a person feeling empty handed. It is hard to imagine that as a person you can forget who you are but it seemed like throughout the Holocaust it occurred frequently. Before the war and being deported, Eliezer knew exactly who he was and what we wanted to do with his life. He embraced his religion whole heartedly and understood himself and could identify who he was. However, when he was in the concentration camps, he realized that as the months went on all he could think about was his hunger. His identity changed from being someone who would easily give up his food to his father and being a respectful son to someone who thought about hunger daily. At one moment he saw a fellow prisoner taking food from his own father. Although, Eliezer promised himself that he would never do that to his own father, he was still “relieved” when he assumed his father to be dead. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, higher desire can only be attained by humans on the condition that basic needs are fulfilled. If those basic needs are not fulfilled, then people cannot have more in depth emotions that allow them to care for others and think about more important situations.
ReplyDelete-Sandhya
In regards to Eliezer’s feelings towards his father, I would completely agree with Sam. With the rest of his family gone, Eliezer became close to his father and was fearful that he would be killed. Over time, this fear burdened Eliezer, as he knew that there was a high probability that his father would not make it. This is expressed in one of the most brutally honest lines in the book, when Eliezer describes a feeling of being “free at last” after his father passes (106). Moreover, the exposure to the atrocities that occurred numbed Eliezer’s mind so much that he could not think rationally anymore. He implemented defense mechanisms to deal with the tragedy that surrounded him, explaining why he felt that “nothing mattered anymore”. This further relates to the struggle with his identity, as since he felt that nothing mattered to him anymore, Eliezer did not even feel human. It’s hard to identify yourself as an individual when you are being worked and starved to death, and once his father died, it nearly became impossible. The father was the only thing left that gave Eliezer pride in who he was and where he came from, and when he died it was all taken away.
ReplyDeleteAs Jon noted above, Eliezer had depended on his father to maintain part of his identity as Eliezer Wiesel the son of Sholomo Wiesel, especially since he had lost the majority of his family already. However, Eliezer slowly lost this identity becoming “A-7713,” due to the numbing combination of constant labor and fear of death (39). When he sees multiple instances of sons abandoning their fathers or even killing them in the cases of Rabbi Eliahou and Meir, he asks for the “strength” to “never do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son had done” (87, 96). Eliezer constantly fights to keep his father alive, especially towards the end of his imprisonment by the Nazis, but is reminded, “there are no fathers, not brothers, no friends” in a concentration camp and that he “ought to be having [his father’s] ration” instead of giving it to his father (105). Even though in the “recesses of [his] weakened conscience” Eliezer states that he might have found “something like – free at last,” he has lost everything that matters to him (106). He truly is A-7713 now and not the son, brother, or relative of anyone.
ReplyDelete