Henry-Post #2

Divide and conquer is a theme that is incredibly prevalent in Elie Wiesel’s Night. This tactic was very common in Nazi death camps and P.O.W camps.“We had left the tents for the musicians' block. We now were entitled to a blanket, a washbowl, and a bar of soap. The Blockäl- teste was a German Jew,” (Wiesel 51). By putting a German Jew at head the nazis were making him take the responsibilities of being head and with that the consequences. If the jews in the block were not happy with conditions (and since the German jew couldn't do anything about it) they would become angry at him and in turn rebel and hate him instead of the nazis. Another example of such an act is demonstrated on page 48 “Our tent leader was a German. An assassin's face, fleshy lips, hands resembling a wolf's paws. The camp's food had agreed with him; he could hardly move, he was so fat. Like the head of the camp, he liked children. Immediately after our arrival, he had bread brought for them, some soup and margarine. (In fact, this affection was not entirely altruistic; there existed here a veritable traffic of children among homosexuals, I learned later.).” Once again the Nazis are trying to allow the homsexual german to be at fault if something goes wrong instead of having a nazi who is already dismissed at head of the tents. My personal connection to this theme comes from a lighter experience. When I was a youngin I was with my cousins in the back yard. My brother and cousin where the dictators of a fictional nation we created. Instead of making themselves in charge of me and my little cousin they put my older cousin in charge who we eventually rebelled against instead of my cousin and brother.