CC Blog Post #5

Learning about this genocide for the last few weeks has been an emotional experience. For example watching Life is Beautiful was sad and happy and funny all at once. It is still so horribly incredible to me that anyone would ever do what was done. It also is so horrible to me to think that this was not actually that long ago. And that something like this could have happened so recently. Learning about this has changed me by making me realise what had actually happened. I knew that the Holocaust had happened, but I didn’t know how bad it actually was, and all the pain that people had to endure for years. The only way that this has changed the way I perceive humanity, is by changing the way I think about the lengths that someone would go to, to exterminate a group they don’t like. Like for example the death march through the freezing cold snow that Elie and all the other prisoners of the camp had to go through. What I have taken away is the awareness of everything that had happened.

CC Poem Blog Post #4

The Journey

By CC Cooksey

Auschwitz

Ruled by delusion

Veiled by despair

Long forgotten the taste of tears

Madness had infected all of us

Forever

Birkenau

Warning! Danger of death

You are good for the ovens

Save us!

Abandoned by the whole world

I suffer hell in my soul and my flesh

All they could utter was one word: “Evacuation”

Escape

A dance of death

Words and phrases from Night by Elie Weisel

CC-Blog Post #3

In this picture there is a lot of emotion. You can tell that they are scared and confused at what is going to happen to them. The sad thing is that they don’t know the bad things that are going to come.

CC Blog #2

A particular theme that I have noticed multiple times is Elie’s loss in his religious beliefs. Even though he has not lost all faith in what he believes/believed in, it is very apparent to me that he no longer has the same comfort and confidence in what he was so intent with in the past.

On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer,a stranger. P. 68

This is where Elie has really lost his intense love of his faith. He says “I felt like an observer, a stranger.” which, at least to me seems like he doesn’t feel as close to God as he used to, or that he is questioning whether God exists at all.

Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar? P. 67

I think these are very powerful in the sense that Elie was so devoted to his religion, and then he starts losing almost all faith in something that was so important in his life. These are just a few of the examples in Night of how Elie is starting to lose his comfort in what he was so invested in for such a long time.

CC-Blog Post #1

As far as I can tell from the first section of the reading of Night, it is a book that has a lot of pieces that will cause emotion. The emotion that was most brought out for me was sadness, because of how the people were treated by the Germans even in the first section. Which was a surprise to me because I had assumed that the story would build up to the bad things that happened. However, bad things were happening within the very first chapter. One of the passages in the book that has brought out emotion so far is:

Finally, people began to worry in earnest. One of my friends, Moishe Chaim Berkowitz, returned from the capital for Passover and told us, “The Jews of Budapest live in an atmosphere of fear and terror. Anti-Semitic acts take place every day, in the streets, on the trains. The Fascists attack Jewish stores, synagogues. The situation is becoming very serious…”

(Wiesel p.9)

I personally think that Wiesel is a strong writer. He describes things well and paints pictures in your head. He does have somewhat of a simple writing style, where he uses straightforward wording and not very complex terms. I think it is an interesting way of writing that is unlike most writers styles.

My very first reaction of the book was that Wiesel tells the story very well. I know I wasn’t there with him so I wouldn’t know if it was told perfectly. However, it seems to be very well explained, even though it is a hard thing to read or write about, he does it very well.