Choice #1: The Conflict in Night, By Elie Wiesel

     I have finished the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel, and it is truly terrifying . This book is a terrifying account of a Nazi death camp that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of his family, the death of his innocence, and the death of his God. I really love this book, and it shows how much a conflict can change a person. The conflicts in the book are all the things that come with the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was born in the town of Sighet in Transylvania, and he was still a teenager when he was taken from his home to the Auschwitz concentration camp and then Buchenwald. He was separated from the rest of his family, except from his father, at Auschwitz. He ended up being the only one in his family who survived these terrible concentration camps.
     At the beginning of the book, Elie was just a weak kid who pictures everything perfect. He was also very joyful. For example, as it said on page 8, Elie talks about how everything was perfect. "The week of Passover. The weather was wonderful. My mother bustled round her kitchen... We drank, we ate, we sand. The Bible bade us rejoice during the seven days of the feast, to be happy." Then right away, he was struck by reality. He even said that "we wished the feast were over." The reason why he was sad about that was because the German soldiers were surrounding their area. When two ghettos were set up in Sighet, as Elie said, "Little by little life returned to normal." (Page 9). Elie even describes joyfulness on the Saturday before Pentecost. He said "people strolled, carefree and unheeding, through the swarming streets. They chatted happily." (Page 10). Elie also was a very religious person before all this struck him. Elie's friend, Moshe the Beadle, even asked him on page 2 "Why do you weep when you pray?" If you weep while you pray, that proves that you are very religious. Elie was very religious before he was taken to a concentration camp, and before his family died.
     Then, later on in the book, while he is at the concentration camps, he is struck by reality, being forced to watch people being hung, and having to watch people die while they were on his death march. Elie become very gloomy about this, and just stricken with shock and fear. He first becomes very angry. Like when the guard beat him and his father for no reason, he started to clench his fists, and he couldn't wait for revenge. He wanted to kill them. As Elie and his father suffer more horrible things, Elie losses all strength to do anything. When his father becomes ill with dysentery, he first has faith and hope for him to survive. An example of the hope and faith that Elie has that his father will survive is when he actually takes him to the surgeon. "'My father's ill,' I answered for him. 'Dysentery...' 'Dysentery? That's not my business. I'm a surgeon. Go on! Make room for others.'" (Page 103). The surgeon was the one who didn't want to help Elie's father, and Elie was the one who brought this father to the surgeon. This was the last time Elie really had hope and faith that his father will survive.
     The part where Elie really loses hope for his father, and basically everything is when he awoke on January 29 at dawn. He woke up to notice that in his father's place lay another invalid. Once he noticed this, he immediately concluded that "They must have taken him away before dawn and carried him to the crematory. He may still have been breathing." (page 106). Elie immediately jumped to this conclusion. He didn't even think that his father was alive. This proves that all the conflicts that come with the Holocaust take all the faith away from Elie. Another thing that the conflicts that come with the Holocaust take away from Elie is his religion. While he was watching someone being hanged, he heard many people ask things like "Where is God? Where is the divine mercy?" These questions were stuck in Elie's head, and he began to ask those questions himself.
      In conclusion, all the conflicts that come with the Holocaust change Elie for worse. He loses his religion, he loses hope and faith, and he loses his family.