Elie Wiesel

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Elie Wiesels Night

• The story of a Holocaust survivor

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Elie Wiesel

• Born 1928
• Family was Jewish both ethically and religiously
• Lived in the village Sighet, Hungary
• Deported in May, 1944
• Rescued in April 1945 from Buchenwalk
  concentration camp

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After His Rescue

• Lived in France with his two surviving sisters
• Worked as a French journalist
• Would not speak about his Holocaust experiences
  for 10 years
• Night first appeared in 1956 much longer and
  written in Yiddish
• Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986

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Context of Night The Holocaust
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The Beginning

• January 1933 Hitler is appointed Chancellor of
  Germany Germany has a Jewish population of
  around 556,000
• March 1933 The concentration camps Dachau and
  Buchenwald are opened
• Over the next two years, Jews are systematically
  stripped of power and privileges

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The Nuremburg Laws

• Enacted in September 1935
• Defined Judaism as a race rather than a religion
• Set up strict laws such as
• No citizenship
• No intermarrying with Aryan races
• Required to carry identification cards that
  clearly labeled them as Jewish

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The Makings of War

• March 1938 German troops peacefully occupy
  Austria
• November 1938 Kristallnacht The Night of
  Broken Glass
• September 1939 Germany invades Poland WWII
  starts
• November 1939 Polish Jews required to wear the
  yellow Star of David
• June 1940 Germany occupies Paris

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The Final Solution

• July 1941 The Final Solution begins over the
  next 4 years 6 million Jews will be murdered

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Why?

• But if I would show the good that came of it
• I must talk of things other than good.
• OR
• Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
• Dantes Inferno

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Night

• Based on Elie Wiesels experience but not an
  exact account
• Contains many literary elements
• First published 1956
• First written in Yiddish, then French, then
  English