Night 1137following being expelled from it (along with the
village’s other foreign Jews), crammed into a cattle
car, and almost exterminated—he ceases to talk of
either Cabbala or God. Instead, he speaks almost
exclusively of his tragic experiences. As he does so,
Moshe struggles desperately to believe that God is
perpetually at work, even during the massacre of
which he was nearly a victim. He intuits that there
must be a divine purpose behind his survival: to
help his Jewish brothers and sisters avoid the fate
that almost became his own. Yet, everyone to whom
he tells his story, even Wiesel, either believes it is
madness or a fabrication designed to elicit pity. In
response, they give him none, disregard the story,
and deem him “other” in terms of sanity or class and
national status, ultimately ignoring his humanity at
the price of their own.
To an extent, the experiences Wiesel undergoes
as a result of his Jewish ethnicity parallel Moshe’s.
At first, his religious faith is robust. Nevertheless,
like Moshe’s, Wiesel’s faith is tried when, acting
on prejudice, Germans invade Sighet and disen-
franchise its remaining Jews. After the Germans
move into their homes and arrest their community
leaders, Sighet’s Jews are stripped of many rights.
On pain of death, they are forbidden from leav-
ing their houses after 6 p.m., entering restaurants
or cafes, traveling on railways, and attending syna-
gogue. In addition, they must surrender all objects
of value and always wear a yellow star to mark
their Jewish “otherness.” The need for a yellow star
undermines the logic justifying its application. In
order to rationalize their jurisdiction over Jews,
Nazis argued that Jews were both inherently infe-
rior to Aryans and that their inferiority was unde-
niably visible. Yet their very need to mark alleged,
unmistakably perceptible inferiority invalidates the
argument. Wiesel’s brief account of a French Jew-
ess who successfully passes for Aryan further dis-
mantles this construct. Regardless, claims such as
these aimed to consolidate Nazis’ feelings of innate
superiority over others, strengthen their morale, and
enable them to confiscate the property and rights of
others without remorse.
As Night demonstrates, Nazis employed many
devices for justifying their exploitation of Jewish
people. Of these, the most disturbing is arguably
the logic behind and resulting effects of their effort
to dehumanize Jews. Central to Nazi ideology is
the argument that Jews are animals. To support this
claim, they treated Jews like animals and, by doing
so, forced them into situations that made them
behave and appear as such. For example, in the text,
Wiesel is transported from one site to another like
livestock. After being forced out of his home, he
is placed in Sighet’s large ghetto and then, shortly
after, moved to its smaller one. From there, on a
Saturday, he is sent to the synagogue, which the
Nazis use as a holding den for Jews before trans-
porting them elsewhere. When Wiesel enters the
synagogue, he sees the altar has been broken and
all the hangings have been torn from the walls. In
addition, he learns that the Jews are forbidden from
leaving the sanctuary and therefore, when the need
arises, given little choice but to urinate on its floor.
Hence, in this scene, while showing complete irrev-
erence for a holy day and the Jews’ sacred space, the
Nazis make them behave and appear as the filthy
swine Wiesel’s S.S. concentration camp officers
claim they are.
Although survival in concentration camps was
precarious, several aspects of identity increased
the odds of it. One was familial relationships.
When Wiesel arrives in Birkenau, Nazi disregard
for the humanity of Jews instantly becomes evi-
dent through the immediate and, in many cases,
permanent, separation of Jewish males from Jew-
ish females. The moment Elie’s mother and sister
Tzipora are sent away with the other females is the
last time he ever sees them. Accordingly, the bond
between Elie and his father becomes increasingly
important in their struggle to survive the toils of
concentration camp life. As its name indicates, the
function of the camp is to focus on work. For this
reason, Nazis incinerate Jews whom they feel are
inadequate tools of labor. On minimal sustenance
such as bread and water, Jews must make them-
selves appear as fast and strong workers. Those who
do not are whipped, beaten, or murdered. As Moshe
initially implored his Sighet brethren to do, many,
such as Wiesel, are able to persevere through Jew-
ish camaraderie or their faith in God, while others,
such as his father are not. At the same time, after
the Nazis are finally defeated, when Wiesel looks at