Night by Elie Wiesel

Explain Wiesel's view of himself at the end of Night.

"One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me"

List three parallel events in one or more of the videos and Night. Be specific.

(not on the test)

List three specific examples of how the Jews deceived themselves.

- In chapter 1, the Jews were trying to convince themselves that it was good they are being taken away, and that the soldiers are nice, and that they won't get them yet-always looking for positive . They also think ghettos are good because they don't get the stares and are now all together. -When they arrived, they heard about the working and thought every thing would be okay - The women on the train is telling them what they know(fire) but they are denying reality (they eventually loose all illusion)

Elie Wiesel

-Boy who is telling the story of his experience in the Holocaust (13-16 years old) -very religious at first, then "looses" his faith

Explain two examples that show the Nazis had themselves been dehumanized.

-They burn living people -they throw dead bodies out of the cars like sacks of flour

Explain three examples that show the prisoners began to act like animals.

-They fought to the death for some bread, acting like animals literally killing each other. -One son killed his father for bread -They are beating the women- turning against their own people, and the other Jew prisoners are turning against them to get that extra bread or whatever is it

Explain two examples showing that people living near the camps had been dehumanized.

-the people throw bread into the cars to watch the prisoners kill each other -they think the prisoners suffering is amusing

ALSO STUDY CORE CONCEPTS

...

simile

A comparison using like or as

personification

A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes

biography

A story about a person's life written by another person. (not this book)

symbol

A thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract.

autobiography

An account of the writer's own life. (this book)

foreshadowing

An event of statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later.

irony

An unexpected twist or contrast between what happens and what was intended or expected to happen. (lots of faith irony in chapter 5)

prose

Any material that is not written in a regular meter like poetry

theme

Central idea of a work of literature (3 themes of night: dehumanization, lack of faith, and illusion)

List two major images or symbols that dominate Night.

Color and death imagery

Buchenwald

Concentration camp in Germany "I REMAINED IN BUCHENWALD until April ii. I shall not describe my life during that period. It no longer mattered. Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore"

desensitization

Decreasing the sensitivity to a specific stimulu

List the three major themes in Night. Give examples.

Dehumanization, loss of faith, and illusion (see one note for multiple examples)

imagery

Description that appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste)

Mr. Wiesel

Elie's father who stays with him the whole time. Dies because of disease and weakness during the camps

Moishe the Beadle

Elie's only friend at home, an older man who teaches his Kabbalah. He gets deported early, and comes back a dehumanized (also shot in the leg)

Describe the treatment of Wiesel's father at Buchenwald.

He is sick, and no one will treat him. He also gets beat up while he is dying. They eventually throw him in the crematorium because he is useless, and he might have been still alive.

Explain why Hitler focused his hatred on the Jews and why this was successful.

Jews were easily blamed for many things(ex. Black Death). People agreed with him because they had no other choice

Madame Schachter

On the same train as Elie the first time they are being deported. She gets beaten by the other prisoners who think she is crazy because she always screams of fire(foreshadowing the crematoriums)

Give at least two specific examples of how people resisted Nazi treatment of the Jews.

The "white rose" movement protested Nazism, though not Jew policy, in Germany. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Explain how the concentration camp and ghetto system aided the Nazi war effort.

The Jews were already gone so the Nazi's made it easy for the other Germans to believe the propaganda

dehumanization

The deprivation of human qualities, rights, or understanding.

Rabbi Eliahou

a Jewish prisoner whose son abandons him- Elie prays not to be like him

Kristallnacht

definition: "the night of broken glass"- Nazi's destroyed and burned Jewish homes, stores, etc.

Nuremberg laws

definition: 1935 laws defining the status of Jews and withdrawing citizenship from persons of non-German blood

Wannsee Conference

definition: 1942 conference in Germany concerning the plan to murder European Jews

Gleiwitz

definition: Camp #3: where Elie's dad was saved from selection "WE STAYED IN GLEIWITZ for three days. Days without food or water. We were forbidden to leave the barrack. The door was guarded by the SS.",

genocide

definition: Deliberate elimination of a group through mass murder. (The Holocaust is an example)

Hitler

definition: German Nazi dictator, started as chancellor, eventually shot himself "This was the end! Hitler was about to keep his promise"

Heinrich Himmler

definition: German Nazi who oversaw the genocide of Jews(secret police)

kapos

definition: a Jewish prisoner who was privileged in return for supervising "The Kapos back then had orders to kill a certain number of prisoners every day"

labor camp

definition: a labor camp in which hard work is enforced "There was a labor camp on the site. The conditions were good

conflagration

definition: a large fire "The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us"

Nazi

definition: a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party, developed by Hitler

automatons

definition: a robot "We were no longer marching, we were running. Like automaton"

dysentery

definition: a stomach disease "Suffering from dysentery, my father was prostrate on his cot" (he eventually dies from this)

poignant

definition: a strong feeling of sadness or regret "Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse"

emaciated

definition: abnormally thin or weak "I was dragging this emaciated body that was still such a weight"(they are all thin, weak, useless bodies)

Totalitarianism

definition: absolute control

concurred

definition: agree "As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job!"

Kabbalah

definition: an ancient Jewish religion "One day I asked my father to find me a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah."

ghetto

definition: an isolated or segregated area the family, along with other Jews, are put into the ghettos, where they are mistreated (the place they live before they are deported)

surreal

definition: bizarre "His very presence in the procession was enough to make the scene seem surreal" "unable to detach ourselves from this surreal moment"

barrack

definition: buildings "The BARRACK we had been assigned to was very long"

S.S. St. Louis

definition: carried refugees with Cuban visas

lucidity

definition: clarity "In one terrifying moment of lucidity"

spunk

definition: courage/determination "You have spunk, my boy"(the doctor talking to Elie)

Einsatzgruppen

definition: death squads in Nazi Germany who killed masses of Jews

liberated

definition: freed from imprisonment " They were, quite simply, liberated by the Russians, two days after the evacuation."

surreptitiously

definition: in a suspicious manner "Some of the Jewish police surreptitiously went to fill a few jugs."

hermetically

definition: in an airtight manner "The world had become a hermetically sealed cattle car."

harangued

definition: lectured "He harangued us from the center of the barrack"(the SS officer)

penury

definition: poverty Moishe the Beadle "lived in utter penury"

billeted

definition: soldiers in a particular place "The officers were billeted in private homes"

liberation

definition: the act of setting someone free form imprisonment "We shall all see the day of liberation"

extermination camp

definition: the camps that Jews were selected to go and were murdered by crematoriums, gas chambers, or starvation.

selection

definition: the choosing of Jews to be killed "A terrible word began to circulate soon thereafter: selection."

Gestapo

definition: the secret state police in Nazi Germany(terrorist) "The Gestapo had threatened to shoot him if he talked"

Dachau

definition: the work camp where most died of starvation

altruistic

definition: unselfish "this affection was not entirely altruistic"(talking about the guard giving bread to children)

metaphor

figure of speech comparing two different things

Explain the four steps on Hitler's road to dictatorial power.

he generated ideas(Austrian Karl-mayor), them he got all Jews our of Germany, into the ghettos, then the concentration camps, then the Final Solution

Idek

in charge of Elie's work unit at Buna. Beats Elie and his father

Juliek

plays the violin at Buna, and when they are being transported to Buchenwald- where he dies

point of view

the perspective from which a story is told

Describe the work, food and sanitation at the concentration/extermination camps.

the work was brutal(and usually pointless), they were given small rations of food, and they were always dirty(sometimes lead to disease and death)

death imagery

words that make you think of death

nonfiction

writing that tells about real people, places, and events (this book)