Transcript Document 529576

THE HOLOCAUST and
NIGHT by Elie Wiesel
Jews Murdered in European
Countries During the Holocaust
Country
Austria
Belguim
Czechoslovakia
Denmark
Estonia
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Poland
Romania
Soviet Union
Yugoslavia
Number of Jews Murdered
Percentage of the Jewish
Population They Made Up
40,000
40,000
315,000
130
1,500
90,000
170,000
60,000
200,000
8,000
80,000
217,000
700
105,000
2,850,000
425,000
1,252,000
60,000
20%
67%
88%
2%
33%
30%
32%
80%
50%
16%
84%
97%
23%
75%
88%
50%
44%
80%
Facts
• Type of work · Literary memoir
• Genre · World War II and Holocaust
autobiography
• Language · Wiesel first wrote a 900-page text
in Yiddish titled Un di Velt Hot Geshvign (And
the World Remained Silent). The work later
evolved into the much-shorter French
publication La Nuit, which was then translated
into English as Night.
• Time and place written · Mid-1950s, Paris.
Wiesel began writing after a ten-year selfimposed vow of silence about the Holocaust.
More Facts
• Narrator · Eliezer (a slightly fictionalized version of
Elie Wiesel)
• Point of view · Eliezer speaks in the first person and
always relates the autobiographical events from his
perspective.
• Tone · Eliezer’s perspective is limited to his own
experience, and the tone of Night is therefore
intensely personal, subjective, and intimate. Night is
not meant to be an all-encompassing discourse on the
experience of the Holocaust; instead, it depicts the
extraordinarily personal and painful experiences of a
single victim.
• Tense · Past
• Setting (time) · 1941–1945, during World War II
More Facts
• Settings (place) · Eliezer’s story begins in Sighet,
Transylvania (now part of Romania; during Wiesel’s
childhood, part of Hungary).
• The book then follows his journey through several
concentration camps in Europe: Auschwitz/Birkenau
(in a part of modern-day Poland that had been
annexed by Germany in 1939), Buna (a camp that
was part of the Auschwitz complex), Gleiwitz (also in
Poland but annexed by Germany), and Buchenwald
(Germany).
• Protagonist · Eliezer
• Major conflict · Eliezer’s struggles with Nazi
persecution, and with his own faith in God and
in humanity
Final Facts
• Themes · Eliezer’s struggle to maintain faith in a
benevolent God; silence; inhumanity toward other
humans; the importance of father-son bonds
• Symbols · Night, fire
• Foreshadowing · Night does not operate like a
novel, using foreshadowing to hint at surprises to
come. The pall of tragedy hangs over the entire
novel, however. Even as early as the work’s
dedication, “In memory of my parents and my little
sister, Tzipora,” Wiesel makes it evident that Eliezer
will be the only significant character in the book who
survives the war. As readers, we are not surprised by
their inevitable deaths; instead, Wiesel’s narrative
shocks and stuns us with the details of the cruelty
that the prisoners experience.
My Home. My Town
Dachau Concentration Camp
• Tower and fenced area
Entrance to museum
Memorial
Where Barracks Once Stood
Dachau Barracks
Another View
Jewish Memorial
Entrance to Camp
Furnaces
Crematorium and Gas Chamber
•
•
•
The gas chamber and cremation ovens, at the far left corner of the
campsite, were in a red brick building which looked a little like a standard
duplex house. Inside were three ovens with pallets at the entrance to
each.
A sign mentions that the rafters above the ovens were used to hang
prisoners.
To the left of the ovens a green door led to the inside of the gas chamber.
Protestant Church of Reconciliation
Catholic Mortal Agony of Christ Chapel
The commemorative mass grave dedicated
to the unknown dead at Dachau
Buchenwald
• Prisoners during a roll call at the
Buchenwald concentration camp. Their
uniforms bear classifying triangular
badges and identification numbers.
Buchenwald, Germany, 1938-1941
Buchenwald
• One of the first and largest of the Nazi
German concentration camps established
on German soil.
• It stood on a wooded hill about 4.5 miles
(7 km) northwest of Weimar, Germany.
• Set up in 1937; initially housed political
prisoners and other targeted groups
Roll Call
• Newly arrived prisoners, mostly Jews arrested during
Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass"), at the
Buchenwald concentration camp. Buchenwald,
Germany, 1938.
Buchenwald Barracks
• This photograph was taken after the
liberation of the camp. Buchenwald,
Germany, after April 11, 1945.
Remains
• One of many piles of ashes and bones
found by U.S. soldiers at the Buchenwald
concentration camp. Germany, April 14,
1945.
Wedding Rings
• Found by U.S. army soldiers near the
Buchenwald concentration camp.
Germany, May 1945.
Survivors
• Gather around trucks carrying American
troops. Germany, May 1945.
Auschwitz/Birkenau
•
Was the largest of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp
complex. Located in German-occupied southern Poland.
Auschwitz/Birkenau Gate
Roll Call
Auschwitz
• At the Auschwitz complex, 405,000 prisoners
were recorded as slaves between 1940 and
1945.
• It was the largest graveyard in human history.
– The number of Jews murdered in the gas chambers
of Birkenau is estimated at up to one and a half
million people: men, women, and children.
– Almost one-quarter of the Jews killed during World
War II were murdered in Auschwitz. Of the 405,000
registered prisoners who received Auschwitz
numbers, only a part survived; and of the 16,000
Soviet prisoners of war who were brought there, only
96 survived.
MENGELE- ANGEL OF DEATH
Oskar Schindler
• German industrialist
• Saved about 1,100 Polish Jews by
diverting them from Auschwitz to work for
him, first in his factory near Kraków and
later at a factory in what is now the Czech
Republic.
Extra Credit- MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE
• FOR CREDIT: You must purchase a ticket and attach it your two-page
typed, double spaced, report on your findings, thoughts, impressions,
etc. on what you discovered. Also, bring the sheet that gives the final
information of the child you are given at the beginning of your journey.
• Museum admission includes access to: Adults $15.50 Seniors
(62+)$12.50 Students with I.D. & Youth 5 -18 $11.50 (Under 5 no charge)
• Museum of Tolerance
Simon Wiesenthal Plaza
9786 West Pico Blvd (southeast corner of Pico Boulevard and Roxbury
Drive)
Los Angeles, CA 90035
General Information: 310-553-8403
• CLOSED ON SATURDAYS
• DUE:
• VALUE:
October 1st
50 POINTS