Global Issues' Timeline of events for the novel Night by Elie Wiesel
Created by seanderson on Sep 14, 2010
Last updated: 10/07/10 at 05:37 PM
The Jewish year passes and on New Year's Day, the prisoners gather to celebrate and give thanks to God. Elie remembers that at one time, New Year's Day had dominated his life. But now, he refuses to offer up any prayers or praises to God. He feels no longer capable of lamentation, blaming God instead. But he also feels lonely in a world without God. As the Jews wish one another a Happy New Year, Elie finds his father, takes his hand, and kisses it. A tear falls on it and Elie asks, "Whose was that tear? Mine? His?" They both remain silent. Elie concludes, "We had never understood one another so clearly." On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the Jews debate whether they should fast or not. Partly in obedience to his father and partly as a revolt against God, Elie swallows his food. But again, in his heart he feels a great void.
The SS after encountering with the concentration camp thay take all the jews to Gelwitz, the problem was: there were no vehicles. Elie describes running over 21 km. in the snow with no enery with no food neither rest. And anyone who stopped running would have been killed or stepped by all the jews and militaries that were behind. In his journey he meets with an old friend but he had terrible stomach aches which made him give up. When running, Elie starts wondering if it would be easier to let go and die. The only thing that prevent him of doing letting him self down was the feeling that actually he was the only motivation to his father and he had to take care of him. After that first horrible phase they arrived to a abandoned town in which they a lilttle rest or death...
A group of simple laborers including Ellie is sent to the new camp named Buna. The camp looked empty and death. The inmates agreed:"Buna is a very good camp. One can hold one's own here."
Their tent leather was a assassin´s face german, that told them that they would have a medical checkup. In the medical checkup, the dentist was not looking for decay but for gold teeth. Those who had gold in their mouths were listed by their number. He had a gold crown. On the fourth day, Kapos appeared. Each one began to choose the men they liked. They struck up conversations with their neighbors, the musicians, almost all of them were Jews.Juliek, a Pole, Louis a native of Holland, Hans from Berlin and the foreman was a Pole: Franek.
Elie and his father were separated from his mother and his sisters. Elie and his group get very close to the chimeney, and because of what they see they finally understand the danger. They were taken to get cleaned up and get other clothes. Then there was a process of selection where they had to go or run from barrack to barrack where first the skilled workers such as carpenters or electricicians were taken. And so on. The only thing they had to do was to wait to be selected. In the meantime they only slept and ate what they gave to them.
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/History/Articles/Birkenau01.html
The final destination in the Jewish trip was Birkenau, a concentration camp. 3 Km separated from Auschwitz, this camp was the destination for the Hungary Jews and the gypsies. When Mrs. Schächter's start screaming about the fire again, Eliezar and his family watch it for real, they device a black cloud of smoke, they didn'know this was the result of the gas chambers. This was their first experience in Birkenau.
Mrs. Schächter was a quiet woman in her fifties and her ten-year-old son was with her, crouched in a corner of the wagon; at the third night, she started to scream: "Fire! I see a fire! I see a fire!" (pp.24) Pointing through the window but there was nothing. She lost her mind because she had been separated her husband and her other two sons. Some women and her son tried to calm her but it was useless because she continued screaming; she was totaly out of her mind, she was hallucinating because the lack of food and water and she foreshadowed a cataclysm for the Jewish religion.
Kabbalah is an ancient wisdom that provides practicals tools for creating Joy and lasting fullfilment. Its an incredible system of technology that it will be completely change the way you look at your world.
http://www.kabbalah.com/
The Jews of Sighet,of now-a-day Romania were forced by the Hungarian Police to board cattle cars to "relocate" them. The conditions of the transport were terrible and inhuman, the food and the water was scarce, little oxygen, overcrowding and tremendous heat. The third day of the journey, the convoy stopped in Kaschau, Czechoslovakia, near the border with Hungary. There, a German officer boarded the car accompanied by a Hungarian translator and said, p. 23-24, "From this moment on, you are under the authority of the German Army. ". He also said that everybody must handle in valuables under the threat of death. And the sick people must report immediately to the hospital car. He concluded, in p. 24, "There are eighty of you in the car, if anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs."
http://www.holocaust.com.au/mm/n_senta.htm
• The Hungarian police used their rifle butts, their clubs to discriminately strike old man and women, children and cripples. One by one the houses emptied and the streets filled with people carrying bundles. • By ten o’clock everyone was outside (that’s when they take Jews to the ghettos). • At last at one o’clock in the afternoon came the signal to leave. They abandoned streets, death, empty houses, gardens etc. • Last Saturday they gather around in family spending the night going over memories and ideas. • Ghetto life was wretched. • The ghettos were filthy, with poor sanitation. • Extreme overcrowding forced many people to share a room. • Disease was rampant and disastrous. • The ghettos were created in sighed one in the center town occupied four streets, and another smaller one extended over several alleyways on the outskirts of town. • Ghetto was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. • A ghetto is now described as an overcrowded urban area often associated with a specific population. • People thought that Jewish would remain in the ghettos until the end of the war, when the red army arrived. • The ghettos where not ruled by Germans or Jew, there actually were ruled by delusions. • Ghettos were to be liquidated entirely. • They spent a day without food, but they were exhausted, they even felt hungry.
Sighet, Transylvania is a small, rural village in present-day Romania where Elie Wiesel was born and lived until he was taken away to concentration camps. Sighet is located in Transylvania, near the Transylvanian Alps in central Romania. It is such a small village that it did not even make the maps. Before the war, there were several Jewish temples and synagogues in and near Sighet. In the 1930's, the Jewish population in Romania totaled 500,000 up from 29,000 in 1803. However, during World War II, most of those Jews were evacuated and sent off to the Nazi labor or death camps.
http://enloehs.wcpss.net/projects/west42002/wiesel3/birthplace.html
Born September 30, 1928, Eliezer Wiesel led a life representative of many Jewish children. Growing up in a small village in Romania, his world revolved around family, religious study, community and God. Yet his family, community and his innocent faith were destroyed upon the deportation of his village in 1944.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/holo/eliebio.htm
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