Journal Entry #1 (last week)

             Elie Wiesel, the author, who wrote the book “Night” about his experiences as a Jew going through the horrors of the Holocaust. This week in our lit circle, we had a mild conversation. There wasn’t much to talk about considering we only read the preface, which was quite long. In the preface, he introduces himself to be a very damaged, and scarred man. That is understandable given his past. He was very young when his family was separated, he was torture and his father was killed right before him. These kinds of things can make you crazy. He didn’t think he was worthy of surviving. He thought that he wasn’t brave enough to deserve it. Elizer, the narrator of the book, relives his memories in great detail. He remembers Moshie the Beadle, a friend of his whom he would talk to about Kabblah – mysteries of the universe. Moshie told him about his experience when he was taken away by the Hungarian government to Poland where they forced the Jews to dig a mass grave and walk up to it while they shot them. Babies were thrown up in the air and shot with machine guns. Somehow he escaped and tried to warn the people of the town that Elizer lived in. The only one who would believe him was Elizer. Most people thought he was insane. “He's just trying to make us pity him. What an imagination he has!” they said. Elizer felt stupid for not listening to Moshie, who may have saved the entire town from being taken to the Nazi death camps. Even though it was not Elizer’s fault for not speaking up for his friend, he blamed himself for the deaths of millions. Our group talked about how Elie’s view of the Holocaust did not change when he was writing as his teenage perspective to his preface perspective. He still felt the same shame and fear that he did when he was young. I think that goes to prove that our past shapes who we are. I think anybody that were to go through that amount of pain, fear, and suffering will be scarred for the rest of their lives. The only good thing to come out of an experience like that is bravery. I don’t think Elie thought he was brave, but compared to somebody without that kind of experience, would be weak instead of strong/brave.