Night :Biography and Context

1. Night :Biography and Context The Biography of Elie Wiesel and Key Characters and Places in His Book “Night” By: Camille Marquez Colleen O’Sullivan Dylan Potter Will McQuitty

2. Elie Wiesel Biography • Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet Romania, where he spent most of his childhood. • His family were strong Jews and during World War II he and his family were sent to concentration camps. • He was deported by the Nazi’s in 1944 when his village was deported. • He was separated from his mother and sister when he was sent to Auschwitz but remained with his father in the camps for two years, where he watched him suffer and eventually die. • In 1945 he spent some years in a French orphanage. • Wiesel survived Auschwitz, Buna, Buchenwald and Gleiwitz and is considered a holocaust survivor. • After the war, Wiesel studied philosophy at a school called Sorbonne and after graduation, taught Hebrew and choir.

3. Elie Wiesel Biography (cont) • He began writing for newspapers in France and Israel and then started to write books. His first book, Night, was published in Buenos Aires, Argentina and is considered his most popular out of all 30 of his novels. • Some of Wiesel’s other books are “Dawn”, “The Accident”, and “The Town Beyond the Wall” • After writing novels, Wiesel started to write plays. • Wiesel then moved to New York and became a U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 and was appointed chairman of the US Holocaust Memorial Council.

4. Biography of Night • Night is narrated by Eliezer, a Jewish teenager who lives in his hometown of Sighet, in Hungarian Transylvania. Eliezer is from a Jewish family. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis occupy Hungary. Not long afterward, many people including the Jews of Eliezer’s town are forced into small ghettos within Sighet. Soon they are herded onto cattle cars, and their nightmarish journey begins. After days and nights crammed into the car, exhausted and near starvation, the passengers arrive at Auschwitz. Upon his arrival, Eliezer and his father are separated from his mother and sisters, whom they never see again. The Jewish arrivals are stripped, shaved, disinfected, and treated with almost unimaginable cruelty. They eventually arrive in Buna, a work camp, where Eliezer is put to work in an -electrical-fittings factory. In the camp, the Jews are subject to -beatings and repeated humiliations. The prisoners are forced to watch the hanging of fellow prisoners in the camp courtyard. Eliezer himself begins to lose his humanity and his faith, both in God and in the people around. In the middle of a snowstorm, the prisoners begin a death march: they are forced to run for more than fifty miles to the Gleiwitz concentration camp. Many die of exposure to the harsh weather and exhaustion. At Gleiwitz, the prisoners are herded into cattle cars once again. They begin another deadly journey: one hundred Jews board the car, but only twelve remain alive when the train reaches the concentration camp Buchenwald. Throughout the ordeal, Eliezer and his father help each other to survive by means of mutual support and concern. In Buchenwald, however, Eliezer’s father dies of dysentery and physical abuse. Eliezer survives, an empty shell of a man until April 11, 1945, the day that the American army liberates the camp.

5. Characters • Eliezer - The narrator of Night and the substitute for the author, Elie Wiesel. Night traces Eliezer’s journey, as the Holocaust robs him of his family and changes his life forever. His journey—which tells Wiesel’s real life story is deeply personal, but it is also representative of the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Jewish teenagers during the Holocaust. • Moshe the Beadle -  Eliezer’s teacher of Jewish mysticism. Moshe is a poor Jew who lives in Sighet. He is deported to the concentration camp before the rest of the Sighet Jews but escapes and returns to tell the town what the Nazis are doing to the Jews. Tragically, the community takes Moshe for a lunatic. • Akiba Drumer  - A Jewish Holocaust victim who gradually loses his faith in God as a result of his experiences in the concentration camp • Madame Schachter  -  A Jewish woman from Sighet who is deported in the same cattle car as Eliezer. Madame Schachter is taken for a madwoman when every night, she screams that she sees furnaces in the distance. She proves to be a prophetess, however, as the trains soon arrive at the crematoria of Auschwitz. • Juliek -  A young musician whom Eliezer meets in Auschwitz. Juliek reappears late in Night, when Eliezer hears him playing the violin after the death march to Gleiwitz. • Chlomo -  Eliezer’s father. Chlomo is respected by the entire Jewish community of Sighet, and by his son as well. He and Eliezer desperately try to remain together throughout their concentration camp ordeal.

6. Concentration Camps • Auschwitz was the largest of Nazi Germany's concentration camps, located in German-occupied southern Poland. The complex consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz I, the administrative center; Auschwitz II an extermination camp and Auschwitz III a work camp. Up to 2.5 million people had died at Auschwitz. Most victims were killed in gas chambers, other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and so-called medical experiments. • Buchenwald concentration camp was a Nazi concentration camp established in July 1937, and one of the largest such camps on German ground. Camp prisoners worked primarily as forced labor in local armament factories. Inmates were Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals, Roma people, Jehovah's Witnesses, Sinti, religious prisoners, criminals, and prisoners of war (POWs).

7. Question # 1

8. Answer # 1 • Wiesel survived Auschwitz, Buna, Buchenwald and Gleiwitz concentration camps

9. Question # 2 • In what year did Wiesel receive the Nobel Peace Prize?

10. Answer # 2 • Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986

11. Question # 3 • Who were the typical inmates in the concentration camps?

12. Answer # 3 • Typical inmates were Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals, Roma people, Jehovah's Witnesses, religious prisoners, criminals, and prisoners of war (POWs).

13. Question # 4 • Who is the main character in Night?

14. Answer # 4 • The main character in Night is Eliezer

15. Question # 5 • What was the largest concentration camp in World War II and where was it located?

16. Answer # 5 • Auschwitz was the largest of Nazi Germany's concentration camps, located in German-occupied southern Poland

17. Notes • Picture on Title Page- http://www.scu.edu/ethics/architects-of-peace/Wiesel/resources/portrait_hr.jpg, http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Buchenwald/BuchenwaldPhotos/WieselMarchingOut.jpg • Picture on Biography Page -http://www.nfb.ca/web428x321/Films/51409/51409_01.jpg • Picture on Biography cont Page- http://www.un.org/News/ossg/wiesel.jpg, http://www.swisseduc.ch/english/readinglist/wiesel_elie/icons/buchenwald.jpg • Picture on CharactersPage-http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Buchenwald/BuchenwaldPhotos/WieselMarchingOut.jpg, http://www.learntoquestion.com/seevak/groups/1999/sites/wiesel/chldhd.jpg • Concentration Camps Page- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Auschwitz_gate_%28tbertor1%29.jpg