BY ELIE WIESEL

Night

Driving Questions

Why is it important to be educated about genocides of the 20th century?

Why is it important that we inform the public of the genocides of the 20th century in an interesting, informative, and compelling way?

Elie Wiesel

In 1944 he and his familywere sent to concentration camps at Auschwitzand at Buna, both in Poland. His imprisonment,which he describes in horrifying detail in Night,forever changed Wiesel as a man and as a Jew.

Elie Wiesel

Wiesel was freed in April 1945, when he wassixteen years old.He went to a French Orphanage and was later reunited with his older sisters.He vowed to neverwrite about the Holocaust.

Night

Through young Wiesel’s eyes, readers travel into the hell of Hitler’s death camps and into the darkness of a long night in the history of the human race.

Night

Night is the account of a young man (Elie) who must bear responsibility for his aged father and whose loss of a beloved parent wracks his spirit with terror, despair and regret.

Characters Elie Weisel—the narrator and author of the novel, Night.

  Chlomo Wiesel—Elie’s father.  They manage to stay

together during they deportment.

Idek—a crazy Kapo who beats Elie.  The worst of Elie’s mistreatment comes after he laughs at Idek lying with a young Polish girls.  For this, Elie is given 25 lashes and faints.

Rabbi Eliahous—this rabbis’ son deserts him in order to survive.  Disturbed by the son’s selfishness, Eli prays that he will never grow so callous toward his own father.

Characters

Heinrich Himmler—Hitler’s second in command and the head of the S.S.  He established Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, near Munich, Germany.

 Adolf Hitler—Dictator of Germany; a demagogue

and tyrant who obtains power by appealing to the emotions and prejudices of the masses.

Dr. Mengele—the “Angel of Death”; a doctor who performed brutal, unnecessary experiments and operations upon prisoners.

 

Memoir

A memoir is a piece of autobiographical writing, usually shorter in nature than a comprehensive autobiography.

Often tries to capture certain highlights or meaningful moments in one's past

A fictional quality even though the story is true