Critical Lens Essay on the book Night by Elie Wiesel Essay

We must forever and a day so take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, neer the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. That bring up is from Elie Wiesel in his Nobel Peace Prize Speech. I agree with the quotation. In the story darkness by Elie Wiesel, many elements correspond to the quote and to the idea of shut up and complicity. Wiesel says in his book that many different bulk were slow because they were not directly affected by the final solution, and purpose that if they did something to try come to the fore to stop it, past they themselves would explicate hurt. He in any case explained how heap like Moshe the Beadle and former(a) denotations in night eon who were humiliated by feller Jews did not believe that the Holocaust was occurring. Over each(prenominal), the Jews, matinee idol, and the German citizens were every silent during the Holocaust. Their serenity encouraged the Nazis to gain bearing and reach the magnitude of eventua lly massacring six trillion Jews.I did not move. I was afraid, (37) said the char make forer Eliezer in Night. That quote refers to when his father is beaten at the concentration camp and Eliezer just stood t present ceremonial it and doing nothing to stop it. The setting of the story Night takes place in a small townspeople of Transylvania in 1941. To this day Wiesel dummy up feels guilty just astir(predicate) his inaction. The button up of the victims and the leave out of resistance to the Nazi menace is one way in which disinterest and silence helps the tormentors, or in this case the Nazis and never the victims who were the Jews. yet when Eliezer was being led to the suggest pit and thought he was going to die, he did not try to run or escape.In the concentration camps, the Jews greatly outnumbered the Nazi soldiers. Maybe if they revolted then even though many would die in the attempt, many could still escape and the number of people who died would be insignificant t o the amount of Jews who died when they did not rise up together. It is implied throughout the text that silence and passivity ar what allowed the Holocaust to continue. Wiesels writing of Night is itself an attempt to violate the silence, to tell loudly and boldly the new multiplication of people about the atrocities of the Holocaust. He feels that people admit to know so that they can find out the warning signs and prevent anything so horrible from ever happening again.Where is God? Where is He? (61) someone tin can Eliezer asked. This quotefrom Night refers to when a child is hung in front of all the Jewish prisoners to scare them into behaving. For more(prenominal) than half an hour the child in the trap stayed there, struggling between life and devastation, dying in slow agony under our eyeball. And we had to look him overflowing in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed. (62) Behind Eliezer, h e comprehend the same man as who said the higher up quotation asking Where is God now? (62) And Wiesel comprehend a voice within himself say Where is He? Here He isHe is hanging here on this gallows. . . . (62) Those quotes show that God was also silent during the Holocaust. It is the idea of Gods silence that Eliezer finds to the highest degree troubling.Eliezers point of view during the story Night changes from not questioning why he requires, to believe that God is dead and does not care about him or any other person on earth. When a man asks, Where is God? (61) the only if chemical reaction is total silence throughout the camp. (61) Eliezer and his fellow Jews are left to wonder how an all-knowing, allpowerful God can allow much(prenominal)(prenominal) horror and severity to occur, especially to such devout worshipers. The existence of this horror, and the lack of a divine repartee, forever shakes Eliezers trustfulness in God. At prototypical Wiesel used to pray with out questioning Gods existence. Now, Eliezer does not warm on the holy day of Yom Kippur and believes that God has died on with the boy that was hung. The silence of God shocks Eliezer and allows the Nazis to persecute them because the Jews rely for a miracle that never comes from a God who does not exist.The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. That quote is also from Elie Wiesels Nobel Peace Prize Speech. The German people living right next to the death camps such as Auschwitz and Buna could smell bodies being burnt, and could see the fire and smoke yet they did nothing. This is complicity, which is defined as the social occasion as an accomplice in a indeterminate act or a crime (according to dictionary.com). The Germans were silent, and because of their silence, the tormentors and Nazis were open to further persecute their victims, who were the Jews and many other pagan minorities that were used as scapegoats. In Night, Eliezer says, Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.This famous quote can be interpreted to mean thatthe silence of the Germans and the ally forces is what authentically allowed the Jews to be murdered so heartlessly. Even though the German civilians did not do anything, Eliezer blames the Allied countries such as Great Britain and the United States for their slow response in reacting to the Nazi threat. It was said years afterward the Holocaust that if any powerful figure got on the BBC news radio station, telling all of the Jews to nullify their homes and flee to Russia because all of the other Jews are disappearing, then more Jews might have been saved. Eliezer and his family were taken to Birkenau in 1944, when the war was already going on for many years. His family could have been warned and most likely saved from the Nazis. It was the neutrality and the lack of involvement of the Allied forces that led to the death of the Jews because they were no t warned.In conclusion, the quote We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented is valid because the silence of the Jews, God, the German civilians, and the Allied forces contributed to the mass murder of millions of people. All of these people in their own separate ways, due to their neutrality and silence during the Holocaust period, allowed the victims to be murdered. The Jews did not rise up against their tormentors, and therefore allowed themselves to be killed. God did not act to protect his chosen people and at the outcome of a horrible sacrifice, God does not step in to save innocent lives. The German people went along with Hitlers grand scheme as puppets.Finally, the only way that the Jews could have had the opportunity of escaping their fate was if they were warned. The ally had the opportunity to warn the Jews, but didnt, perhaps accept that other countries would warn the Jews. But the y didnt. In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didnt converse up because I wasnt a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a Jew. Then they came for the spate unionists, and I didnt speak up because I wasnt a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didnt speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up. That quote is from Martin Niemoller and proves that silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.