Honors English

Who is Akiba Drumer?

A Jewish Holocaust victim who gradually loses his faith in God as a result of his experiences in the concentration camp.

Who is Madame Schächter?

A Jewish woman from Sighet who is deported in the same cattle car as Eliezer. Madame Schächter 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.

Who is Rabbi Eliahou?

A devout Jewish prisoner whose son abandons him in one of many instances in Night of a son behaving cruelly toward his father. Eliezer prays that he will never behave as Rabbi Eliahou's son behaves.

Who is Juliek?

A young musician whom Eliezer meets in Auschwitz. Juliek reappears late in the memoir, when Eliezer hears him playing the violin after the death march to Gleiwitz.

Section 4 Summary and Analysis

After the required quarantine and medical inspection—including a dental search for gold crowns—Eliezer is chosen by a Kapo to serve in a unit of prisoners whose job entails counting electrical fittings in a civilian warehouse. His father, it turns out, serves in the same unit. Eliezer and his father are to be housed in the musicians' block, which is headed by a kindly German Jew. In this block of prisoners, Eliezer meets Juliek, a Jewish violinist, and the brothers Yosi and Tibi. With the brothers, who are Zionists (they favor the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the holy land), Eliezer plans to move to Palestine after the war is over. Akiba Drumer, his faith still strong, predicts that deliverance from the camps is imminent. Not long after Eliezer and his father arrive in Buna, Eliezer is summoned to the dentist to have his gold crown pulled. He manages to plead illness and postpone having the crown removed. Soon after, the dentist is condemned to hanging for illegally trading in gold teeth. Eliezer does not pity the dentist, because he has become too busy keeping his body intact and finding food to eat to spare any pity. Idek, the Kapo in charge of Eliezer's work crew, is prone to fits of violent madness. One day, unprovoked, he savagely beats Eliezer, after which a French girl who works next to Eliezer in the warehouse offers some small kindness and comfort. The narrator then skips forward several years to recount how, after the Holocaust, he runs into the same girl—now a woman—on the Métro in Paris. He explains that he recognized her, and she told him her story: she was a Jew passing as an Aryan on forged papers; she worked in the warehouse as a laborer but was not a concentration camp prisoner. The narration then returns to Eliezer's time at Buna. Eliezer's father falls victim to one of Idek's rages. Painfully honest, Eliezer reveals how much the concentration camp has changed him. He is concerned, at that moment, only with his own survival. Rather than feel angry at Idek, Eliezer becomes angry at his father for his inability to dodge Idek's fury. When Franek, the prison foreman, notices Eliezer's gold crown, he demands it. Franek's desire for the gold makes him vicious and cruel. On his father's advice, Eliezer refuses to yield the tooth. As punishment, Franek mocks and beats Eliezer's father until Eliezer eventually gives up. Soon after this incident, both Idek and Franek, along with the other Polish prisoners, are transferred to another camp. Before this happens, however, Eliezer accidentally witnesses Idek having sex in the barracks. In punishment, Idek publicly whips Eliezer until he loses consciousness. During an Allied air raid on Buna, during which every prisoner is supposed to be confined to his or her block, two cauldrons of soup are left unattended. Eliezer and many other prisoners watch as a man risks his life to crawl to the soup. The man reaches the soup, and after a moment of hesitation lifts himself up to eat. As he stands over the soup, he is shot and falls lifeless to the ground. A week later, the Nazis erect a gallows in the central square and publicly hang another man who had attempted to steal something during the air raid. Eliezer tells the tale of another hanging, that of two prisoners suspected of being involved with the resistance and of a young boy who was the servant of a resistance member. Although the prisoners are all so jaded by suffering that they never cry, they all break into tears as they watch the child strangle on the end of the noose. One man wonders how God could be present in a world with such cruelty. Eliezer, mourning, thinks that, as far as he is concerned, God has been murdered on the gallows together with the child. Analysis: The harrowing scene of the child's murder with which this section concludes symbolically enacts the murder of God. Eliezer comes to believe that a just God must not exist in a world where an innocent child can be hanged on the gallows. "Where is He?" Eliezer asks rhetorically, and then answers, "He is hanging here on this gallows." Upon witnessing the hanging of the child, Eliezer reaches the low point of his faith. The death of the innocent child represents the death of Eliezer's own innocence. In the camp, he has become someone different from the child he was at the beginning of the Holocaust. He has lost his faith, and he is beginning to lose his sense of morals and values as well. In a world in which survival is nearly impossible, survival has become Eliezer's dominant goal. He admits that he lives only to feed himself. When his father is beaten, Eliezer feels no pity. Instead, he becomes angry at his father for failing to learn, as Eliezer is learning, how to survive without attracting the anger of the overseers. Eliezer's relationship with his father is all-important to both of them, because it provides both with support. Though it is crucial to Eliezer to remain with his father at all costs, even the link between parent and child grows tenuous under the stress of the Nazi oppression. When, in this section, Eliezer relates with horror a story about witnessing a thirteen-year-old child who beats his father for making his bed improperly, he seems to feel that the event serves as an implicit cautionary tale. It is Eliezer's great fear that he too will lose his sense of kindness and filial responsibility, that he may turn against his father to facilitate his own survival. Eliezer's story of his encounter with the French girl who comforts him after he is beaten by Idek the Kapo is unusual because it is one of the few places in the memoir where he jumps into the future to explain what happened after the liberation of the concentration camps. This chance meeting on the Métro is the kind of coincidental twist that a novelist might invent but that rarely occurs in nonfiction because it rarely occurs in real life. Several such coincidences do happen in Night, however—for example, Eliezer meets Juliek again later in the memoir—but none of them lessens the truthful impact of the story. In Wiesel's mind, the fact of surviving the Holocaust is in itself a staggeringly unlikely coincidence, a stroke of sheer luck. The overwhelming majority of concentration camp prisoners did not survive. If one can survive in the face of such great odds, then any coincidence becomes believable. Wiesel wants to make the point that his own survival is a result of luck and coincidence. To attribute his survival to his own merit would be inaccurate, as well as disrespectful of the memories of those millions who did not survive.

Section 3 Summary and Analysis

At Birkenau, the first of many "selections" occurs, during which individuals presumed weaker or less useful are weeded out to be killed. Eliezer and his father remain together, separated from Eliezer's mother and younger sister, whom he never sees again. Eliezer and his father meet a prisoner, who counsels them to lie about their ages. Eliezer, not yet fifteen, is to say that he is eighteen, while his father, who is fifty, is to say that he is forty. Another prisoner accosts the new arrivals, angrily asking them why they peacefully let the Nazis bring them to Auschwitz. He explains to them, finally, why they have been brought to Auschwitz: to be killed and burned. Hearing this, some among the younger Jews begin to consider rebelling, but the older Jews advise them to rely not on rebellion but on faith, and they proceed docilely to the selection. In a central square, Dr. Mengele stands, determining whether new arrivals are fit to work or whether they are to be killed immediately. Taking the prisoner's advice, Eliezer lies about his age, telling Mengele he is eighteen. He also says that he is a farmer rather than a student, and is motioned to Mengele's left, along with his father. Despite Eliezer's joy at remaining with his father, uncertainty remains. Nobody knows whether left means the crematorium or the prison. As the prisoners move through Birkenau, they are horrified to see a huge pit where babies are being burned, and another for adults. Eliezer cannot believe his eyes, and tells his father that what they see is impossible, that "humanity would never tolerate" such an atrocity. His father, breaking down into tears, replies that humanity is nonexistent in the world of the crematoria. Everybody in the column of prisoners weeps, and somebody begins to recite the Jewish prayer for the dead, the Kaddish. Eliezer's father also recites the prayer. Eliezer, however, is skeptical. He cannot understand what he has to thank God for. When Eliezer and his father are two steps from the edge of the pit, their rank is diverted and directed to a barracks. Eliezer interrupts his narration with a moving reflection on the impact of that night on his life, a night that forever burned Nazi atrocity into his memory. In the barracks, the Jews are stripped and shaved, disinfected with gasoline, showered, and clothed in prison uniforms. They are lectured by a Nazi officer and told that they have two options: hard work or the crematorium. When Eliezer's father asks for the bathroom, he is beaten by the Kapo (a head prisoner, in charge of the other inmates). Eliezer is appalled at his own failure to defend his father. Soon they make the short march from Birkenau to Auschwitz, where they are quartered for three weeks, and where their prison numbers are tattooed on their arms. Eliezer and his father meet a distant relative from Antwerp, a man named Stein, who inquires after news of his family. Eliezer lies and tells him that he has heard about Stein's family, and that they are alive and well. When a transport from Antwerp arrives, however, the man learns the truth, and he never visits Eliezer again. Despite all that they have seen, the prisoners continue to express their faith in God and trust in divine redemption. Finally, they are escorted on a four-hour walk from Auschwitz to Buna, the work camp in which they will be interned for months. Analysis: As a work of literature, Night stands on the borderline between fiction and memoir. Wiesel breaks conventions of traditional fiction writing in order to tell the truth about historical events. For example, at the beginning of this section, Eliezer is separated from his mother and sister, whom he never sees again. Presumably, they both die in the Holocaust, just as Wiesel's own mother and younger sister did. Remarkably, Eliezer's mother and sister are never mentioned again in Night. It is as if they simply disappear from Eliezer's mind and memory. Such a disappearance would probably not happen in a novel, since novels generally are careful about keeping track of all of their characters. Thus, the disappearance of these two characters is a powerful reminder of the necessarily fragmentary nature of memory and memoir. Wiesel's chilling first-person narration results in a powerful immediacy of emotion. He shows us only what Eliezer sees and thinks at a given moment—his limited perspective and lack of knowledge make the story all the more terrifying. It is as if the reader is with Eliezer, caught up in the tension and horror of his experience. This kind of narration does not permit more leisurely reflection about events that are not occurring immediately, or not occurring in the vicinity of the narrator. Night is not meant to offer an extended autobiography of Wiesel. While his two works of autobiography, All Rivers Run to the Sea and And the Sea Is Never Full, do in fact dwell on his sorrow at losing his mother and sister, Night is not intended to be comprehensive. Instead, it is intended as a brief, harrowing portrait of Wiesel's life during the Holocaust. Eliezer's loss of faith in God begins at Auschwitz. When he first sees the furnace pits in which the Nazis are burning babies, he experiences the beginnings of doubt: "Why should I bless His name?" Eliezer asks, "What had I to thank Him for?" Though not complete at that moment, Eliezer's loss of faith contrasts with the continued faith of such devout prisoners as Akiba Drumer, whose faith in divine redemption raises the prisoners' spirits. We also see, as Eliezer begins to doubt his own humanity, the beginning of his loss of faith in man. When the Kapo beats his father, Eliezer wonders at the transformation that he himself has undergone. Only the day before, he tells himself, he would have attacked the Kapo; now, however, he remains guiltily silent. Fear of silence figures prominently in this memoir, as it is silence in the face of evil, Wiesel believes, that allows evil to survive. This section contains perhaps the most famous, and the most moving, paragraphs in all of Night. Only rarely does Eliezer interrupt his continuous narrative stream to reminisce about the ways that the Holocaust continued to affect his life after it ended. Here, however, Eliezer looks back on his first night in Birkenau and describes not only what he felt at the time but also the lasting impact of that night: Never shall I forget that night . . . which has turned my life into one long night. . . . Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God. . . . Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never. The repetition of the phrase "Never shall I forget" illustrates how Eliezer's experiences are forever burned into his mind; like the actual experiences, the memories of them are inescapable. The phrase seems also like a personal mantra for Wiesel, who understands the crucial necessity of remembering the horrible events of the Holocaust and bringing them to light so that nothing like them can ever happen again.

Section 5 Summary and Analysis

At the end of the summer of 1944, the Jewish High Holidays arrive: Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the new year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Despite their imprisonment and affliction, the Jews of Buna come together to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, praying together and praising God's name. On this solemn Jewish holiday, Eliezer's religious rebellion intensifies, and he cannot find a reason to bless God in the midst of so much suffering. Eliezer mocks the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people, deciding that they have only been chosen to be massacred. He comes to believe that man is stronger than God, more resilient and more forgiving. His denial of faith leaves him alone, or so he believes, among the 10,000 Jewish celebrants in Buna. Leaving the service, however, Eliezer finds his father, and there is a moment of communion and understanding between them. Searching his father's face, Eliezer finds only despair. Eliezer decides to eat on Yom Kippur, the day on which Jews traditionally fast in order to atone for their sins. Soon after the Jewish New Year, another selection is announced. Eliezer has been separated from his father to work in the building unit. He worries that his father will not pass the selection, and after several days it turns out that Eliezer's father is indeed one of those deemed too weak to work: he will be executed. He brings Eliezer his knife and spoon, his son's only inheritance. Eliezer is then forced to leave, never to see his father again. When Eliezer returns from work, it seems to him that there has been a miracle. A second selection occurred among the condemned, and Eliezer's father survived. Akiba Drumer, however, is not so lucky. Having lost his faith, he loses his will to live and does not survive the selection. Others are also beginning to lose their faith. Eliezer tells of a devout rabbi who confesses that he can no longer believe in God after what he has seen in the concentration camps. With the arrival of winter, the prisoners begin to suffer in the cold. Eliezer's foot swells up, and he undergoes an operation. While he is in the hospital recovering, the rumor of the approaching Russian army gives him new hope. But the Germans decide to evacuate the camp before the Russians can arrive. Thinking that the Jews in the infirmary will be put to death prior to the evacuation, Eliezer and his father choose to be evacuated with the others. After the war, Eliezer learns that they made the wrong decision—those who remained in the infirmary were freed by the Russians a few days later. With his injured foot bleeding into the snow, Eliezer joins the rest of the prisoners. At nightfall, in the middle of a snowstorm, they begin their evacuation of Buna. Analysis: In Jewish tradition, the High Holidays are the time of divine judgment. According to the prayer book, Jews pass before God on Rosh Hashanah like sheep before the shepherd, and God determines who will live and who will die in the coming year. In the concentration camps, Eliezer hints, a horrible reversal has taken place. Soon after Rosh Hashanah, the SS (Nazi police) performs a selection on the prisoners at Buna. All the prisoners pass before Dr. Mengele, the notoriously cruel Nazi doctor, and he determines who is condemned to death and who can go on living. The parallel is clear and so is the message: the Nazis have placed themselves in God's role. Eliezer has decided that the Nazis' actions mean that God is not present in the concentration camps, and thus praying to him is foolish. The Nazis' usurpation of God's role is further emphasized when an inmate tells Eliezer, "I've got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promises . . . to the Jewish people." Akiba Drumer's death makes it painfully clear that humankind requires faith and hope to live. After losing his faith, Drumer resigns himself to death. Eliezer promises to say the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, on Drumer's behalf, but he forgets his promise. Eliezer's loss of faith comes to mean betrayal not just of God but also of his fellow human beings. Wiesel seems to affirm that life without faith or hope of some kind is empty. Yet, even in rejecting God, Eliezer and his fellow Jews cannot erase God from their consciousness. Though he has supposedly lost his faith in God, Akiba Drumer requests that Eliezer say the Kaddish on his behalf; clearly religion still holds some power over him. Similarly, in the third section, Eliezer, having rejected his faith in God forever, still refers to God's existence when making his oath never to forget the Holocaust "even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself." In the first volume of his autobiography, All Rivers Run to the Sea, Wiesel speaks at far greater length about his religious feelings after the Holocaust. "My anger rises up within faith and not outside it," he writes. "I had seen too much suffering to break with the past and reject the heritage of those who had suffered." Wiesel, in his personal life, kept his faith in God throughout the Holocaust. His narrator, Eliezer, seems unable to reject the Jewish tradition and the Jewish God completely, even though he declares his loss of faith. As Night is a record of Wiesel's feelings during the Holocaust, it is often seen as a work that offers no hope at all. Though it ends with Eliezer a shattered young man, faithless and without hope for himself or for humanity, it is Wiesel's belief that there are reasons to believe in both God and humankind's capacity for goodness, even after the Holocaust. One might argue that the very existence of Night demonstrates Eliezer's continued belief in the importance of human life in general and his own life in particular. It would seem incongruous to write a memoir if, as Eliezer swears in Section Three, he has forever lost his will to live. The mere fact of writing Night seems to conflict with Eliezer's hopelessness.

Who is Idek?

Eliezer's Kapo (a prisoner conscripted by the Nazis to police other prisoners) at the electrical equipment warehouse in Buna. Despite the fact that they also faced the cruelty of the Nazis, many Kapos were as cruel to the prisoners as the Germans. During moments of insane rage, Idek beats Eliezer.

Who is Meir Katz?

Eliezer's father's friend from Buna. In the cattle car to Buchenwald, Katz saves Eliezer's life from an unidentified assailant.

Who is Franek?

Eliezer's foreman at Buna. Franek notices Eliezer's gold tooth and gets a dentist in the camp to pry it out with a rusty spoon.

Who is Stein?

Eliezer's relative from Antwerp, Belgium, whom he and his father encounter in Auschwitz. Trying to bolster his spirit, Eliezer lies to Stein and tells him that his family is still alive and healthy.

Who is Moishe the Beadle?

Eliezer's teacher of Jewish mysticism, Moishe is a poor Jew who lives in Sighet. He is deported 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 Moishe for a lunatic.

Who are Hilda, Béa, and Tzipora?

Hilda - Eliezer's oldest sister. Béa - Eliezer's middle sister. Tzipora - Eliezer's youngest sister.

Section One Summary and Analysis

In 1941, Eliezer, the narrator, is a twelve-year-old boy living in the Transylvanian town of Sighet (then recently annexed to Hungary, now part of Romania). He is the only son in an Orthodox Jewish family that strictly adheres to Jewish tradition and law. His parents are shopkeepers, and his father is highly respected within Sighet's Jewish community. Eliezer has two older sisters, Hilda and Béa, and a younger sister named Tzipora. Eliezer studies the Talmud, the Jewish oral law. He also studies the Jewish mystical texts of the Cabbala (often spelled Kabbalah), a somewhat unusual occupation for a teenager, and one that goes against his father's wishes. Eliezer finds a sensitive and challenging teacher in Moishe the Beadle, a local pauper. Soon, however, the Hungarians expel all foreign Jews, including Moishe. Despite their momentary anger, the Jews of Sighet soon forget about this anti-Semitic act. After several months, having escaped his captors, Moishe returns and tells how the deportation trains were handed over to the Gestapo (German secret police) at the Polish border. There, he explains, the Jews were forced to dig mass graves for themselves and were killed by the Gestapo. The town takes him for a lunatic and refuses to believe his story. In the spring of 1944, the Hungarian government falls into the hands of the Fascists, and the next day the German armies occupy Hungary. Despite the Jews' belief that Nazi anti-Semitism would be limited to the capital city, Budapest, the Germans soon move into Sighet. A series of increasingly oppressive measures are forced on the Jews—the community leaders are arrested, Jewish valuables are confiscated, and all Jews are forced to wear yellow stars. Eventually, the Jews are confined to small ghettos, crowded together into narrow streets behind barbed-wire fences. The Nazis then begin to deport the Jews in increments, and Eliezer's family is among the last to leave Sighet. They watch as other Jews are crowded into the streets in the hot sun, carrying only what fits in packs on their backs. Eliezer's family is first herded into another, smaller ghetto. Their former servant, a gentile named Martha, visits them and offers to hide them in her village. Tragically, they decline the offer. A few days later, the Nazis and their henchmen, the Hungarian police, herd the last Jews remaining in Sighet onto cattle cars bound for Auschwitz. Analysis: One of the enduring questions that has tormented the Jews of Europe who survived the Holocaust is whether or not they might have been able to escape the Holocaust had they acted more wisely. A shrouded doom hangs behind every word in this first section of Night, in which Wiesel laments the typical human inability to acknowledge the depth of the cruelty of which humans are capable. The Jews of Sighet are unable or unwilling to believe in the horrors of Hitler's death camps, even though there are many instances in which they have glimpses of what awaits them. Eliezer relates that many Jews do not believe that Hitler really intends to annihilate them, even though he can trace the steps by which the Nazis made life in Hungary increasingly unbearable for the Jews. Furthermore, he painfully details the cruelty with which the Jews are treated during their deportation. He even asks his father to move the family to Palestine and escape whatever is to come, but his father is unwilling to leave Sighet behind. We, as readers whom history has made less naïve than the Jews of Sighet, sense what is to come, how annihilation draws inexorably closer to the Jews, and watch helplessly as the Jews fail to see, or refuse to acknowledge, their fate. The story of Moishe the Beadle, with which Night opens, is perhaps the most painful example of the Jews' refusal to believe the depth of Nazi evil. It is also a cautionary tale about the danger of refusing to heed firsthand testimony, a tale that explains the urgency behind Wiesel's own account. Moishe, who escapes from a Nazi massacre and returns to Sighet to warn the villagers of the truth about the deportations, is treated as a madman. What is crucial for Wiesel is that his own testimony, as a survivor of the Holocaust, not be ignored. Moishe's example in this section is a reminder that the cost of ignoring witnesses to evil is a recurrence of that evil. If one of Wiesel's goals is to prevent the Holocaust from recurring by bearing witness to it, another is the preservation of the memory of the victims. Eliezer's relationship with his father is a continuous theme in Wiesel's memoir. He documents their mutually supportive relationship, Eliezer's growing feeling that his father is a burden to him, and his guilt about that feeling. On a larger scale, Wiesel also hopes to preserve the memory of the Jewish tradition through his portrayal of his father. When news of the deportations comes to Sighet, Eliezer's father, a respected community leader, is among the first notified. He is in the middle of telling a story when he is forced to leave. Wiesel notes, "The good story he had been in the middle of telling us was to remain unfinished." In a metaphorical sense, this "good story" symbolizes the entirety of European Jewish tradition, transmitted to Eliezer—and to Wiesel himself—through the father figure. Night laments the loss of this tradition, of the story that remains unfinished. In writing this memoir and his other works, Wiesel is attempting to complete his father's story, honor the memory of the Holocaust victims, and commemorate the traditions they left behind. The first section of Night also establishes the groundwork for Eliezer's later struggle with his faith. At the start of the story, he is a devout Jew from a devout community. He studies Jewish tradition faithfully and believes faithfully in God. As the Jews are deported, they continue to express their trust that God will save them from the Nazis: "Oh God, Lord of the Universe, take pity upon us...." Eliezer's experience in the concentration camps, however, eventually leads to his loss of faith, because he decides that he cannot believe in a God who would allow such suffering. Later in the memoir, Eliezer suggests that, for him, one of the most horrible of the Nazis' deeds was their metaphorical murder of God. Since the Holocaust, Judaism has been forced to confront the long-existent problem of theodicy—how God can exist and permit such evil. Night chronicles Eliezer's loss of innocence, his confrontation with evil, and his questioning of God's existence.

The Imact of a Black and White Film in Schindler's List

In movies set in modern times, a director's choice to use black and white might seem trite and artistically showy. In Schindler's List, however, the black-and-white presentation effectively evokes the World War II era and deepens the impact of the story. Black and white also presents the filmmaker with the opportunity to use sparing color to highlight key scenes and signal shifts in time. For example, the opening full-color scene, one of only a handful of color scenes in the movie, fades into the next scene, in black and white. The shift plunges viewers into 1939, bringing them symbolically closer to the events and characters in the story. This artistic and psychological convention of bringing the audience back in time works well partly because it captures the way many people visualize World War II—through black-and-white images and film footage of the 1930s and 1940s. Although contemporary viewers are accustomed to full-color images and tend to consider such images to be more realistic than those in black and white, the black and white in Schindler's List conveys an alternate but no less realistic version of life. The movie presents an eclectic mix of styles, such as film noir, which is associated with the great detective stories of the 1940s. The style links the film to that time period and serves to deepen viewers' immersion in the historical setting. The artistic advantage of black and white is that it heightens the impact of the film's violence and highlights the duality of good and evil. The lighting and contrast in the film noir style enhance the brutality of each violent scene. For instance, when the one-armed man is shot in the head in the snowy streets of Kraków, his seemingly black blood spreads through the pure white snow, and the stark contrast in colors emphasizes the split between life and death, good and evil. In some terrifying scenes, such as the evacuation of the Kraków ghetto, the lighting is kept dark, conveying a sense of panic and confusion. The white faces of the dead in the streets contrast starkly against the murky background. The same contrast marks the pile of burning bodies in the Plaszów work camp: the white skulls stand out in the pile of ashes. The women's faces in the shower scene at Auschwitz are bathed in white light as they stare up in terror at the showerheads. The contrast of light and dark also marks Schindler's face, which is often half in shadow, reflecting his selfish dark side. His face becomes more fully lighted as he makes the transformation from war profiteer to savior. Schindler's List might not have had the same visual and emotional impact had Spielberg made the film in color.

Sections 6 and 7 Summary and Analysis

In the blizzard and the darkness, the prisoners from Buna are evacuated. Anybody who stops running is shot by the SS. Zalman, a boy running alongside Eliezer, decides he can run no further. He stops and is trampled to death. Malnourished, exhausted, and weakened by his injured foot, Eliezer forces himself to run along with the other prisoners only for the sake of his father, who is running near him. After running all night and covering more than forty-two miles, the prisoners find themselves in a deserted village. Father and son keep each other awake—falling asleep in the cold would be deadly—and support each other, surviving only through mutual vigilance. Rabbi Eliahou, a kindly and beloved old man, finds his way into the shed where Eliezer and his father are collapsed. The rabbi is looking for his son: throughout their ordeal in the concentration camps, father and son have protected and supported each other. Eliezer falsely tells Rabbi Eliahou he has not seen the son, yet, during the run, Eliezer saw the son abandon his father, running ahead when it seemed Rabbi Eliahou would not survive. Eliezer prays that he will never do what Rabbi Eliahou's son did. At last, the exhausted prisoners arrive at the Gleiwitz camp, crushing each other in the rush to enter the barracks. In the press of men, Eliezer and his father are thrown to the ground. Fighting for air, Eliezer discovers that he is lying on top of Juliek, the musician who befriended him in Buna. Eliezer soon finds that he himself is in danger of being crushed to death by the man lying on top of him. He finally gains some breathing room, and, calling out, discovers that his father is near. Among the dying men, the sound of Juliek's violin pierces the silence. Eliezer falls asleep to this music, and when he wakes he finds Juliek dead, his violin smashed. After three days without bread and water, there is another selection. When Eliezer's father is sent to stand among those condemned to die, Eliezer runs after him. In the confusion that follows, both Eliezer and his father are able to sneak back over to the other side. The prisoners are taken to a field, where a train of roofless cattle cars comes to pick them up. The prisoners are herded into the cattle cars and ordered to throw out the bodies of the dead men. Eliezer's father, unconscious, is almost mistaken for dead and thrown from the car, but Eliezer succeeds in waking him. The train travels for ten days and nights, and the Jews go unfed, living on snow. As they pass through German towns, some of the locals throw bread into the car in order to enjoy watching the Jews kill each other for the food. Eliezer then flashes forward to an experience he has after the Holocaust, when he sees a rich Parisian tourist in Aden (a city in Yemen) throwing coins to native boys. Two of the desperately poor boys try to kill each other over one of the coins, but when Eliezer asks the Parisian woman to stop, she replies, "I like to give charity." Eliezer then returns to his narration of the German townspeople throwing bread on the train. An old man manages to grab a piece, but Eliezer watches as he is attacked and beaten to death by his own son, who in turn is beaten to death by other men. One night, someone tries to strangle Eliezer in his sleep. Eliezer's father calls Meir Katz, a strong friend of theirs, who rescues Eliezer, but Meir Katz himself is losing hope. When the train arrives at Buchenwald, only twelve out of the 100 men who were in Eliezer's train car are still alive. Meir Katz is among the dead. My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou's son has done. Analysis: In these sections, we are told two particularly striking stories about sons and fathers. Rabbi Eliahou's son abandons him during the death march from Buna, and a nameless son, in the cattle cars from Gleiwitz to Buchenwald, beats his father to death for a crust of bread. In addition to illustrating the depth of the brutality to which people are capable of sinking when they are mistreated for too long, these incidents reflect on another of the memoir's central themes. They examine the way that the Holocaust tests father-son bonds. The test of the father-son relationship recalls the biblical story of the Binding of Isaac, known in Hebrew as the Akedah. Critics have suggested that Night is a reversal of the Akedah story. The story, related in Genesis, tells of God's commandment to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as an offering. Utterly faithful, Abraham complies with God's wish. Just as Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac, God intervenes and saves Isaac, rewarding Abraham for his faithfulness. Night reverses the Akedah story—the father is sacrificed so that his son might live. But in Night, God fails to appear to save the sacrificial victim at the last moment. In the world of the Holocaust, Wiesel argues, God is powerless, or silent. Eliezer never sinks to the level of beating his father, or outwardly mistreating him, but his resentment toward his father grows, even as it is suggested—for instance, when Eliezer's father prevents Eliezer from killing himself by falling asleep in the snow—that the father is sacrificing himself for his son, not vice versa. Whether or not this resentment comes to dominate Eliezer's relationship with his father (indeed, a strong argument can be made for Eliezer's altruism), it seems clear that Eliezer himself feels great guilt at his father's death. As has been suggested, this guilt perhaps drives Eliezer to feel that he must record the events of the Holocaust, honor his father's memory, and repay his sacrifice. Eliezer's discussion of the German townspeople who cruelly throw bread to the starving Jews to watch them fight to the death over the crusts of bread is another instance of Eliezer flashing forward into the future to illustrate how the Holocaust has forever altered his understanding of humankind. His digression is rare because it relates an event in which he was not a direct participant; he was a casual witness, and the event was tangential to his life. The parallel between the Parisian woman's "charity" and the actions of the German townspeople is clear, however, and Wiesel tells the story to show that behavior that is casually cruel is not limited to the Holocaust—humanity has an unimaginably wicked streak in it.

Plot Overview of Night

Night is narrated by Eliezer, a Jewish teenager who, when the memoir begins, lives in his hometown of Sighet, in Hungarian Transylvania. Eliezer studies the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) and the Cabbala (a doctrine of Jewish mysticism). His instruction is cut short, however, when his teacher, Moishe the Beadle, is deported. In a few months, Moishe returns, telling a horrifying tale: the Gestapo (the German secret police force) took charge of his train, led everyone into the woods, and systematically butchered them. Nobody believes Moishe, who is taken for a lunatic. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis occupy Hungary. Not long afterward, a series of increasingly repressive measures are passed, and the Jews of Eliezer's town are forced into small ghettos within Sighet. Soon they are herded onto cattle cars, and a nightmarish journey ensues. After days and nights crammed into the car, exhausted and near starvation, the passengers arrive at Birkenau, the gateway to Auschwitz. Upon his arrival in Birkenau, Eliezer and his father are separated from his mother and sisters, whom they never see again. In the first of many "selections" that Eliezer describes in the memoir, the Jews are evaluated to determine whether they should be killed immediately or put to work. Eliezer and his father seem to pass the evaluation, but before they are brought to the prisoners' barracks, they stumble upon the open-pit furnaces where the Nazis are burning babies by the truckload. The Jewish arrivals are stripped, shaved, disinfected, and treated with almost unimaginable cruelty. Eventually, their captors march them from Birkenau to the main camp, Auschwitz. They eventually arrive in Buna, a work camp, where Eliezer is put to work in an electrical-fittings factory. Under slave-labor conditions, severely malnourished and decimated by the frequent "selections," the Jews take solace in caring for each other, in religion, and in Zionism, a movement favoring the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, considered the holy land. In the camp, the Jews are subject to beatings and repeated humiliations. A vicious foreman forces Eliezer to give him his gold tooth, which is pried out of his mouth with a rusty spoon. The prisoners are forced to watch the hanging of fellow prisoners in the camp courtyard. On one occasion, the Gestapo even hang a small child who had been associated with some rebels within Buna. Because of the horrific conditions in the camps and the ever-present danger of death, many of the prisoners themselves begin to slide into cruelty, concerned only with personal survival. Sons begin to abandon and abuse their fathers. Eliezer himself begins to lose his humanity and his faith, both in God and in the people around him. After months in the camp, Eliezer undergoes an operation for a foot injury. While he is in the infirmary, however, the Nazis decide to evacuate the camp because the Russians are advancing and are on the verge of liberating Buna. 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.

Forward Summary and Analysis

Noting his trepidation regarding interviews with foreign journalists, François Mauriac recounts his encounter with a journalist from Tel Aviv, later revealed to be Night's author, Elie Wiesel. Once the conversation began, Mauriac's fears were allayed by the intimate nature of the interview. The two talked about the Nazi occupation of France (1940-1944) during World War II. Mauriac notes that his most haunting memories of the Occupation involve events he did not directly witness—his wife told him about seeing trainloads of Jewish children awaiting deportation at Austerlitz station in Paris. Even though he could not imagine the horror that awaited these prisoners, the image of them packed into trains was enough to shatter his illusions about the progress of Western civilization. He refers to the French Revolution (1789) as an unfulfilled promise of progress, a dream that was initially fractured by the outbreak of World War I (Germany declared war on August 2, 1914) and then smashed by the horrors of the Holocaust. Wiesel then revealed to Mauriac that he was one of the children in those cattle cars, and Mauriac begins discussing the strengths of Night. He talks about the power of Wiesel's story: like the memoir of Anne Frank, a German Jew who died in a concentration camp, it is a deeply personal story, bearing painfully intimate witness to the horrors of World War II. He explains that Wiesel has given a human face to the suffering of the Holocaust by telling his own "different, distinct, unique" account of events. As an individual chronicle of life under the Nazis, Mauriac argues, the work merits attention as an incomparable story. Mauriac adds that Wiesel's narrative possesses an even more engaging, spiritual dimension. Mauriac focuses on the narrator's struggles with God and religion as the most striking aspect of the work. Quoting one of Night's most famous passages (the "Never shall I forget that night" passage that occurs after the narrator's arrival at Auschwitz), Mauriac explains that he was intensely affected by the narrator's loss of faith, and that this crisis of faith is a profoundly troubling legacy of the Holocaust. As a deeply believing Christian, he writes, he wanted to explain to Wiesel that he views suffering as the cornerstone of faith, not as an impediment to trust in God. He wishes he had been able to explain to Wiesel his faith, trust in God's grace, and confidence in eternal mercy. But, Mauriac concludes, the power of Wiesel's story, particularly the depth of his spiritual crisis, overwhelmed him, and, struck speechless, he "embrace[d] him, weeping." Analysis: François Mauriac (1885-1970) was a French writer, author of novels, poems, essays, journalism, and plays, and winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a devout Roman Catholic whose writings often focus on the struggle between good and evil within human nature and the importance of faith. During World War II, Mauriac's vociferous criticism of the Nazis forced him to go into hiding. He later became a staunch supporter of Charles de Gaulle, the French hero who helped liberate his nation from Nazi occupation in 1944. According to most accounts, it was Mauriac who persuaded Wiesel to write and publish Night. Wiesel had imposed a vow of silence upon himself regarding his experiences in the camps, but Mauriac convinced Wiesel of the importance of sharing his story. Along these lines, it is worth noting that some critics—definitely a minority—feel that Wiesel altered his manuscript to conform to Mauriac's emphasis on bearing witness and the crisis of faith. According to these critics, Wiesel's original manuscript, the voluminous Yiddish version of more than 800 pages titled Un di Velt Hot Geshvign (And the World Remained Silent), is much fiercer in tone than Night. These same critics argue that Mauriac's influence caused Wiesel to remove the manuscript's vitriol and its demands for retribution in favor of a more somber, reflective, and harrowing—and consequently more palatable and sympathetic—tone. These criticisms aside, Mauriac's foreword insightfully points to the true strengths of Wiesel's work. Night is a terrifyingly personal account of horrific events. As Mauriac points out, the Nazi atrocities were so unimaginable and inconceivable that, merely by bearing witness, Wiesel is performing an invaluable service to humanity. As Mauriac illustrates with the anecdote about his wife, we cannot always see firsthand the horrible suffering of the world, but it is imperative that we are told about it and recognize its horror. As he notes, "It is not always the events we have been directly involved in that affect us the most." By bearing witness, by sharing his incredibly painful and personal story, Wiesel enables us to better understand a horrific historical moment that is impossible to imagine in the abstract. Mauriac also focuses on the power of the narrator's crisis of faith and the loss of his faith in God. This loss of faith, however, is not quite as complete as Mauriac suggests. Wiesel's struggles with God are much more complex than a simple journey from complete faith to a belief that God no longer exists. Nevertheless, it is interesting that Mauriac frames Wiesel's loss of faith as, paradoxically, an affirmation of Christian conceptions of God. Mauriac explains that the idea of suffering, of pain and persecution, is fundamental to his conceptions of Jesus Christ and his religious beliefs. Christians, he argues, accept that the world is full of suffering, and this recognition of suffering increases belief in grace. Because the world is so corrupt, he implies, a Christian is able to believe more fully in the purity of divine law and mercy. But, in the end, Mauriac acknowledges that the basic human emotions he feels when presented with Wiesel's story overwhelm such a theoretical argument. Night is remarkable for its intellectual, spiritual, and theological depth, but its greatest power, it is clear, lies in its emotional candor.

Who is Zalman?

One of Eliezer's fellow prisoners. Zalman is trampled to death during the run to Gleiwitz.

Section 2 Summary and Analysis

Packed into cattle cars, the Jews are tormented by nearly unbearable conditions. There is almost no air to breathe, the heat is intense, there is no room to sit, and everyone is hungry and thirsty. In their fear, the Jews begin to lose their sense of public decorum. Some men and women begin to flirt openly on the train as though they were alone, while others pretend not to notice. After days of travel in these inhuman conditions, the train arrives at the Czechoslovakian border, and the Jews realize that they are not simply being relocated. A German officer takes official charge of the train, threatening to shoot any Jew who refuses to yield his or her valuables and to exterminate everybody in the car if anybody escapes. The doors to the car are nailed shut, further preventing escape. Madame Schächter, a middle-aged woman who is on the train with her ten-year-old son, soon cracks under the oppressive treatment to which the Jews are subjected. On the third night, she begins to scream that she sees a fire in the darkness outside the car. Although no fire is visible, she terrifies the Jews in the car, who are reminded that they do not know what awaits them. But, as with Moishe the Beadle earlier in the memoir, they console themselves in the belief that Madame Schächter is crazy. Finally, she is tied up and gagged so that she cannot scream. Her child, sitting next to her, watches and cries. When Madame Schächter breaks out of her bonds and continues to scream about the furnace that awaits them, she is beaten into silence by some of the boys on the train, with the encouragement of the others. The next night, Madame Schächter begins her screaming again. The prisoners on the train find out, when the train eventually stops, that they have reached Auschwitz station. This name means nothing to them, and they bribe some locals to get news. They are told that they have arrived at a labor camp where they will be treated well and kept together as families. This news comes as a relief, and the prisoners let themselves believe, again, that all will be well. With nightfall, however, Madame Schächter again wakes everyone with her screams, and again she is beaten into silence. The train moves slowly and at midnight passes into an area enclosed by barbed wire. Through the windows, everybody sees the chimneys of vast furnaces. There is a terrible, but undefined, odor in the air—what they soon discover is the odor of burning human flesh. This concentration camp is Birkenau, the processing center for arrivals at Auschwitz. Analysis: One of Wiesel's concerns in Night is the way that exposure to inhuman cruelty can deprive even victims of their sense of morality and humanity. By treating the Jews as less than human, the Nazis cause the Jews to act as if they were less than human—cruelty breeds cruelty, Wiesel demonstrates. In the ghetto, Eliezer recounts, the Jews maintained their social cohesion, their sense of common purpose and common morality. Once robbed of their homes and treated like animals, however, they begin to act like animals. The first hint of this dehumanized behavior on the part of the Jewish prisoners comes when some of the deportees, in the constraints of the cattle car, lose their modesty and sense of sexual inhibition. As the section progresses, the Jews become more and more depraved, overcome by their terror. Some of them begin to beat Madame Schächter in order to quiet her, and others vocally support those who are doing the beating. Wiesel suggests that one of the great psychological and moral tragedies of the Holocaust is not just the death of faith in God but also the death of faith in humankind. Not only does God fail to act justly and save the Jews from the cruel Nazis; the Nazis drive the Jews into cruelty, so that the Jews themselves fail to act justly. The Jewish prisoners' continual denial of what is happening around them reflects one of the major barriers in writing about the Holocaust. Until the Jews experience the horrors of Auschwitz, they cannot believe that such horrors exist. Even after having heard Moishe's firsthand report, when the Jews arrive at Auschwitz, they still believe that it is merely a work camp. One can imagine, then, how difficult it is to convince others of the atrocities committed by the Nazis. Wiesel reminds us that the Holocaust is almost too awful a story to convey, yet he insists that it is a story that must be told, because it is crucial that those who hear the story believe, and act on their beliefs, before it is too late. The figure of Madame Schächter, who in her lunacy foresees the furnaces of Auschwitz, raises an important question about the boundaries between sanity and insanity in the context of the evils of the Holocaust. Madame Schächter, who is supposedly crazy, sees clearly into the future, whereas the other Jews, who are supposedly sane, fail to foresee their fate. Throughout Wiesel's memoir, sanity and insanity become confused in the face of atrocity. One would think it insane to imagine the extermination of six million Jews, yet it occurred, efficiently and methodically. In the world of Auschwitz, then, normal standards of lunacy and sanity become confused, just as one's sense of morality is turned upside down.

Who is Julian Scherner?

Played by Andrzej Seweryn An SS officer whom Schindler bribes in order to gain the necessary permits for the sale of his enamelware factory. Although Scherner is a member of the Nazi Party and buys into all the beliefs of that party, he is not a sadist like Goeth. Scherner's total disregard for the plight of the Jews comes from indifference and latent anti-Semitism. He represents the institutional evil that was the Third Reich.

Who is Itzhak Stern?

Played by Ben Kingsley Schindler's Jewish accountant and conscience. Stern is an intelligent man who never loses his pride in the face of the violent and dehumanizing conditions the Jews face under the Nazi regime. He is able to influence the good, moral side of Schindler. Stern is the first to recognize that Schindler's factory can be a haven for Jews. His paternalistic attitude toward his fellow Jews in the ghetto leads him to take advantage of his position to save those who would otherwise be exterminated. He initially expresses contempt for the materialistic Schindler but gains respect for him as the profiteer changes. Stern's relationship with Schindler contributes greatly to Schindler's decision to save the Schindlerjuden.

Who is Regina Perlman?

Played by Bettina Kupfer A woman who attempts to convince Schindler to save her parents. Regina lives in Kraków and passes as a gentile in order to avoid Nazi capture. She is desperate to save her parents and risks detection by dressing up and going to Schindler's office to beg him for help. She is crushed when he refuses her, but her spirit is redeemed as she later sees her parents enter the factory gate.

Who is Emilie Schindler?

Played by Caroline Goodall Oskar Schindler's wife. Emilie is a good and patient woman who loves Schindler unconditionally, even as he cheats on her continually. She expresses only exasperation upon finding another woman in Schindler's apartment but is visibly hurt when she finds that the doorman does not even know Schindler is married. Emilie has pride, however, and leaves Schindler in Poland because he cannot promise to be faithful to her. She tells him to "send chocolate" to her at home in Czechoslovakia.

Who is Helen Hirsch?

Played by Embeth Davidtz Amon Goeth's Jewish maid, who lives a tortured life as the object of Goeth's desire and disgust. Helen Hirsch is a strong woman lost in despair, forced to work for Goeth, whom she despises. She faces brutal, unpredictable beatings at Goeth's hands and begins to lose hope, accepting the probability of her own death. She is representative of victims who experienced psychological abuse under the Nazi regime.

Who is Rabbi Menasha Lewartow?

Played by Ezra Dagan A man who serves as a rabbi prior to the Nazi invasion. Rabbi Lewartow, whom Schindler saves, escapes execution at Goeth's hands, and his inability to lead religious ceremonies represents the oppression of the Jewish faith. The rabbi is grateful and redeemed when Schindler, in the Czechoslovakian factory, tells him to begin performing prayers again.

Who is Poldek Pfefferberg?

Played by Jonathan Sagalle A Jewish smuggler and Schindler's black-market connection. Pfefferberg, whom Schindler first approaches in a church, becomes Schindler's provider of black-market luxury items. Pfefferberg is enterprising and determined to survive. During the liquidation of the ghetto, he plans to escape through the sewers. Though his wife, Mila, refuses to go in the sewers, he reassures her and goes to see if they are clear. When he returns for her, she is gone. He uses his quick wit to save himself in an encounter with Amon Goeth by pretending to be working under Nazi orders.

Who is Oskar Schindler?

Played by Liam Neeson The protagonist and eventual savior of approximately 1,100 Jews. The film follows Schindler's progression from a callous, greedy war profiteer to a man willing to sacrifice his fortune to save the lives of his Jewish factory workers. Schindler is a womanizer and con artist who never hesitates to do something outside the law, such as placing bribes, to get what he wants. His metamorphosis into a hero is slow in coming. Initially, he is indifferent to the plight of the Jews and has little concern for the moral issues at stake. However, he develops compassion for the Jews and begins to see his factory workers as humans deserving of life. His compassion ultimately compels him to save them at great personal risk. Schindler's motives are never directly stated in the film, and the real-life Schindler never offered an explanation.

Who is Marcel Goldberg?

Played by Mark Ivanir A friend of Poldek and a ghetto policeman. Goldberg is an opportunist and black marketer and becomes a policeman after striking a deal with a Nazi. The job pays well, which is all he cares about. Goldberg continues to be opportunistic throughout the film, accepting bribes from Schindler via Stern to move Jews into Schindler's factory.

Who are Mr. And Mrs. Nussbaum?

Played by Michael Gordon and Aldona Grochal A wealthy couple forced to vacate their apartment, which later becomes Schindler's. The Nussbaums are rich and snobbish, initially disgusted with not only their ghetto quarters but their country neighbors as well. However, they quickly lose their snobbery as they realize that all the Jews in the ghetto are in the same boat.

Who are Chaja And Danka Dresner

Played by Miri Fabian and Anna Mucha A mother and daughter who epitomize family bonds and loyalty. Chaja and Danka are inseparable throughout the film. During the liquidation of the ghetto, Chaja makes the ultimate sacrifice, forcing Danka to take the last hiding spot left in a building. Danka, however, exhibits the same loyalty as she leaves the hiding spot to find her mother. This mother and daughter represent the loyalty and devotion of family.

Who is Amon Goeth?

Played by Ralph Fiennes A Nazi soldier in charge of building of Plaszów work camp. Goeth is a cruel, sadistic man deeply entrenched in Nazi philosophy. Goeth exhibits a true hatred for the Jews, at times shooting them randomly from his balcony high above the labor camp. He and Schindler share many common traits, such as greed and callous self-centeredness, but Goeth gives himself totally to evil and hatred. He is also deeply conflicted, torn between feelings of attraction and disgust for his Jewish maid. Goeth represents the all-consuming hatred of the Nazi Party.

Plot Overview of Schindler's List

Schindler's List opens with a close-up of unidentified hands lighting a pair of Shabbat (Sabbath) candles, followed by the sound of a Hebrew prayer blessing the candles. This scene, one of only a handful of color scenes in the film, closes as the flames flicker out. The wisp of smoke from the dying flames fades into the next scene, now in black and white, and becomes a plume of smoke from a steam engine. A folding table is set up on a train platform, where a single Jewish family registers as Jews. The single table becomes many tables, and the single family becomes a large crowd. Close-up images of names being typed into lists provide a sense of the vast number of Jews arriving in Kraków. Oskar Schindler appears in his Kraków hotel room. His face is not shown, and the focus is on his possessions. He puts on his expensive watch, cuff links, and Nazi Party pin, and takes a large wad of bills from his night table. Schindler then enters a nightclub. Once he is seated, a high-ranking Nazi official at a nearby table catches his attention. Attempting to ingratiate himself with the local Nazis in order to secure lucrative war contracts, Schindler sends drinks to the table. Before long, he is treating a large table of Nazis and their friends to expensive food and fine wine. Schindler has his picture taken with everyone important at the table, as well as with dancers at the club. Schindler next visits the Judenrat, the Jewish council charged with carrying out Nazi orders in Kraków. He walks directly to the front of a seemingly endless line of Jews, where he finds his accountant, Itzhak Stern. Schindler tells Stern that he needs investors, "Jews," to help him buy an enamelware factory. Since Jews, by law, cannot own businesses, Schindler tells Stern that he will pay the investors in product, not money. A profiteer, Schindler knows that he will maximize his profit if he does not have to pay the Jewish investors in cash. He also wants Stern to run the business, but Stern initially refuses the offer, telling Schindler that the Jews will not be interested in investing. Schindler, however, does not give up. Next, he visits a church where Jewish smugglers conduct business. All of the smugglers, except one named Poldek Pfefferberg, are scared off. Schindler tells Pfefferberg he will need lots of luxury items in the coming months, and Pfefferberg promises to procure them. The scene then changes to one of masses of Jews walking over a bridge. Their armbands stand out starkly. It is March 20, 1941—the deadline for Jews to enter the ghetto. A little Polish girl in the street shouts, "Good-bye, Jews," over and over again. While Schindler arrives at his new luxury apartment, recently vacated by the Nussbaum family, the Nussbaums themselves arrive in the ghetto with thousands of other uprooted families. Schindler finally secures money from the Jewish investors, who agree to accept goods as payment, because, as Schindler points out, money will be worthless in the ghetto. Schindler sets up his factory with Stern's help and hires Jews, rather than Poles, because they are cheaper to employ. Workers at the factory will be deemed "essential"—a status that saves them from removal to death camps. Stern recognizes this fact immediately and fills the factory with many Jewish workers whom the Nazis would otherwise have deemed expendable. At this point, Schindler is unaware that Stern is using his position in the factory to save people. His awareness grows, however, when Stern brings to see him a one-armed man who wants to thank Schindler for saving him by making him "essential." Schindler dismisses the gratitude and chastises Stern for bringing the man to see him. Shortly after the scolding, Schindler has to rescue Stern himself from a train bound for a death camp. Meanwhile, construction on the Plaszów labor camp begins, and Amon Goeth appears. Goeth, a sadistic Nazi, is charged with building and running the camp. When Plaszów is completed, the Jews are evacuated from the Kraków ghetto and sent to the camp. From a hill high above the ghetto, Schindler and his girlfriend watch the destruction. He sees a little girl in a red coat—the only color in the otherwise black-and-white scene—walking through the carnage. Schindler's girlfriend tearfully begs him to go home, and Schindler is obviously moved by what he sees. Schindler convinces Goeth to allow him to build his own subcamp to house his factory workers. Schindler begins to participate actively in saving Jews when Regina Perlman, a Jewish girl passing as a gentile, visits his office. She begs Schindler to hire her parents because she has heard that his factory is a haven. He refuses to help and sends her away. Later, he yells at Stern and tells him he is not in the business of saving people. But when Schindler finishes his tirade, he gives Stern his gold watch and tells him to bring the Perlmans over. With this decision, he begins to actively save Jews. Over time, Schindler gives Stern more and more of his own personal items to use for bribes to bring people to his factory. Some time later, Goeth is charged with evacuating Plaszów and exhuming and burning the bodies of 10,000 Jews killed there and at the Kraków ghetto. Schindler realizes that his workers, Stern included, face certain death at the hands of the Nazis, so he decides to spend his fortune to save as many Jews as he can. With that, Schindler begins to make his list. He persuades Goeth to sell him his workers, as well as Goeth's maid, Helen Hirsch, to work in his factory in Czechoslovakia. The men and women are transported to Czechoslovakia on two separate trains, however, and the women are inadvertently diverted to Auschwitz, where Schindler is forced to buy them again. The men and women are reunited at the factory, where they remain until the war's end. When the war ends, Schindler tells his workers they are now free but that he will be hunted as a war criminal and must flee at midnight. When he bids his Schindlerjuden good-bye, they give him a ring made from the gold tooth work of a factory worker, engraved with the Talmudic phrase, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." Schindler breaks down, crying that he could have sacrificed more, saved more lives. He and his wife then flee. The next morning, a single Russian soldier enters the camp and tells the Jews they are free. As they walk toward a nearby town, the scene dissolves into full color and reveals a group of real Holocaust survivors walking across a field. They line up, many accompanied by the actors who play them, and place rocks on Schindler's grave. The last person at the grave is Liam Neeson (Oskar Schindler). He places a rose on the tombstone.

Parallel editing in Schindler's List

Spielberg uses parallel editing, or crosscutting, a cinematic convention in which two or more concurrent scenes are interwoven with each other, throughout Schindler's List. Parallel editing illuminates the stark difference between the hardships of the Jews and the comfort and optimism of Schindler and the Nazis in Poland. In the broadest sense, it demonstrates the powerful contrast between happiness and sadness. Two scenes in particular demonstrate the powerful impact of parallel editing that a linear presentation of the story could not have produced. In the first scene, Schindler moves into his luxury apartment in Kraków soon after the Jewish owners are evacuated by the Nazis and sent to the Kraków ghetto. In the second and perhaps most compelling example, three scenes are interwoven: Schindler celebrates his birthday, a wedding takes place in the Plaszów labor camp, and Goeth beats Helen Hirsch. These expertly edited scenes leave an indelible impression on the viewer for several reasons. Early in the film, Mr. and Mrs. Nussbaum, under the watchful eye of SS officers, grab everything of value they can fit into a suitcase as they are chased from their luxury apartment and forced to join the Jews marching to the Kraków ghetto. These wealthy people are obviously outraged at their treatment. As they make their way to the ghetto, the scene cuts to Schindler entering the very same apartment seemingly moments after the family left. He tours the expansive, richly furnished apartment, admiring the luxurious furnishings and decorations. As he does so, the family arrives in the ghetto to find a tiny, dark, dirty room waiting for them. Sprawled on the Nussbaums' bed, Schindler says, "It couldn't possibly be better." The scene then cuts back to the Nussbaums. Mrs. Nussbaum, with unconvincing optimism, remarks to her husband that "it could be worse." Mr. Nussbaum responds, "How could it possibly be worse?" By interweaving these moments into a single scene, Spielberg forces the viewer to confront the bitter irony of the situation in which Schindler benefits from the Nussbaums' misery. In addition, Schindler at this point in the film takes no notice of and has no remorse for the evacuated couple. The tremendous impact of his callousness is intensified in light of the family's suffering. Perhaps the most powerful crosscut scene in the film occurs when Schindler celebrates his birthday with a group of Nazis in a nightclub. Here, Schindler's wantonness rises to new heights as he and the Nazis hold a party in the midst of the evil of the Holocaust surrounding them. But even in dire situations, a celebration proves that hope persists, as Spielberg shows us by splicing this scene with the wedding in the labor camp. But yet a third line of action is cut into this scene, its brutality contrasting with the hope and joy of the wedding and birthday celebrations: Goeth brutally beats Helen Hirsch in her basement room after attempting to seduce her. The contrast between Helen's desolation and the happiness of the participants in the two celebrations forces viewers to confront the reality of the Jewish situation during the Holocaust, when violence and death were always just around the corner.

What are the Symbols in Schindler's List?

The Girl in the Red Coat The girl in the red coat is the most obvious symbol in Schindler's List, simply because her coat is the only color object, other than the Shabbat candles, presented in the main body of the film. To Schindler, she represents the innocence of the Jews being slaughtered. He sees her from high atop a hill and is riveted by her, almost to the exclusion of the surrounding violence. The moment Schindler catches sight of her marks the moment when he is forced to confront the horror of Jewish life during the Holocaust and his own hand in that horror. The little girl also has a greater social significance. Her red coat suggests the "red flag" the Jews waved at the Allied powers during World War II as a cry for help. The little girl walks through the violence of the evacuation as if she can't see it, ignoring the carnage around her. Her oblivion mirrors the inaction of the Allied powers in helping to save the Jews. Schindler later spots her in a pile of exhumed dead bodies, and her death symbolizes the death of innocence. The Road Paved with Jewish Headstones The road through the Plaszów labor camp, paved with headstones torn up from Jewish cemeteries, is a replica of the actual road that existed there. The road adds to the historical accuracy of the film but also symbolizes the destruction of the Jewish race. The removal of the headstones from the cemeteries represents the enormity of the Holocaust. Unsatisfied with simply wiping out existing Jews, Goeth, by planning the road, denies acknowledgement of many Jews' final resting places. By removing the grave markers, Goeth in effect erases the existence of the dead. Moreover, Goeth forces the Jews in the camp to build the road, rubbing in their faces the fact that they, too, will soon be erased. The message is clear: the Nazis view the Jews as not worth even grave markers and want only to erase them from history. Piles of Personal Items In one of the most jarring scenes in the film, Jews are loaded onto cattle cars as a recorded voice tells them to leave their luggage on the platform, as it will follow on a separate train. The luggage, however, will not follow them. Instead, Nazis bring it to a back room, where they dump out and sort the contents. This room holds huge piles of personal belongings, including photographs, shoes, hairbrushes, and clothing, all separated for processing. At a table sits a group of Jewish jewelers, forced to sort and determine the value of the gold, silver, and jewels belonging to those on the train. These piles symbolize the millions of lives that were lost—not just the physical lives but the very essence of the victims, who are stripped of their identity. One thousand hairbrushes represent one thousand victims and one thousand lives.

What are the themes in Schindler's List?

The Triumph of the Human Spirit In the face of overwhelming evil, the Jews in Schindler's List exhibit an unbroken spirit and will to survive. Mrs. Nussbaum, trying to make the best of the situation just like all the other Jews forced into the ghetto, tells her husband their ghetto apartment could be worse. Schindler's factory workers believe they may be safe in his factory and continue to hope for survival. The event that perhaps best illustrates this triumph of spirit is the wedding in the Plaszów labor camp. Even though the Jews in Plaszów live in constant fear of death, including random shootings from a hilltop villa by camp overseer Amon Goeth, two people manage to fall in love. With possibly no future to look forward to, they marry in the hope that they will survive. A woman in the barracks apologizes to God for performing the ceremony when she is not a rabbi, but explains that desperate times call for desperate measures, and that the union of the couple is ultimately what counts. The groom crushes a light bulb—an improvised substitution for the traditional wineglass—with his foot at the conclusion of the ceremony. Not only does the couple wed, but they stay true to Jewish traditions, which symbolizes hope for the survival of the Jewish race. The Difference One Individual Can Make The more than six thousand descendants of the Schindlerjuden might never have been born had one man not chosen to take a stand against evil. The Third Reich sanctioned and encouraged violence against the Jews and sought the ultimate destruction of the Jewish race, and millions of citizens of the Third Reich either stood idly by or actively supported this persecution. In Schindler's List, as the Jews in Kraków are forced into the ghetto, a little girl on the street cries out, "Good-bye, Jews," over and over again. She represents the open hostility often shown the Jews by their countrymen. After all, the little girl did not contain this hatred naturally—she learned it. Through her, Spielberg sends the message that the evil of the "final solution" infected entire communities. Although some people tried to help their Jewish friends and neighbors, far more refused to help, fearing reprisal, and some even turned on their Jewish neighbors. Any one of these people could have made a difference in the lives of Jews, but almost none did. Oskar Schindler risked his life and stood alone against the overwhelming evil of the Nazi Party. The powerful idea that one man can save the life of another underlies the entire film. The Dangerous Ease of Denial The Jews in Schindler's List, even as they are forced into the ghetto and later into the labor camp, suffer from a denial of their true situation. This denial afflicted many European Jews who fell victim to the Holocaust. They leave their homes in the countryside and move to Kraków and later to the ghetto because the Nazis force them to. Once in the ghetto, however, they believe the bad times will pass. Their denial of their situation continues in the labor camp, even as killing surrounds them. A prime example of denial occurs in the scene when Mila Pfefferberg tells the other women in her barracks about the rumors she heard of the death camps like Auschwitz. She tells the women how Jews are being gassed to death en masse, their remains cremated. The women respond with an almost angry dismissal, saying something like that surely could not happen. However, the actors manage to convey the fact that deep down, the women suspect the truth. They have suffered enough horror already to know mass extermination is possible.

Sections 8 and 9 Summary and Analysis

The journey to Buchenwald has fatally weakened Eliezer's father. On arrival, he sits in the snow and refuses to move. He seems at last to have given in to death. Eliezer tries to convince him to move, but he will not or cannot, asking only to be allowed to rest. When an air raid alert drives everyone into the barracks, Eliezer leaves his father and falls deeply asleep. In the morning, he begins to search for his father, but halfheartedly. Part of him thinks that he will be better off if he abandons his father and conserves his strength. Almost accidentally, however, he finds his father, who is very sick and unable to move. Eliezer brings him soup and coffee. Again, however, Eliezer feels deep guilt, because part of him would rather keep the food for himself, to increase his own chance of survival. Confined to his bed, Eliezer's father continues to approach death. He is afflicted with dysentery, which makes him terribly thirsty, but it is extremely dangerous to give water to a man with dysentery. Eliezer tries to find medical help for his father, to no avail. The doctors will not treat the old man. The prisoners whose beds surround Eliezer's father's bed steal his food and beat him. Eliezer, unable to resist his father's cries for help, gives him water. After a week, Eliezer is approached by the head of the block, who tells him what he already knows—that Eliezer's father is dying, and that Eliezer should concentrate his energy on his own survival. The next time the SS patrol the barracks, Eliezer's father again cries for water, and the SS officer, screaming at Eliezer's father to shut up, beats him in the head with his truncheon. The next morning, January 29, 1945, Eliezer wakes up to find that his father has been taken to the crematory. To his deep shame, he does not cry. Instead, he feels relief. Eliezer remains in Buchenwald, thinking neither of liberation nor of his family, but only of food. On April 5, with the American army approaching, the Nazis decide to annihilate all the Jews left in the camp. Daily, thousands of Jews are murdered. On April 10, with about 20,000 people remaining in the camp, the Nazis decide to evacuate—and kill—everyone left in the camp. As the evacuation begins, however, an air-raid siren sounds, sending everybody indoors. When it seems that all has returned to normal and that the evacuation will proceed as planned, the resistance movement strikes, driving the SS from the camp. Hours later, on April 11, the American army arrives at Buchenwald. Now free, the prisoners think only of feeding themselves. Eliezer is struck with food poisoning and spends weeks in the hospital, deathly ill. When he finally raises himself and looks in the mirror—he has not seen himself in a mirror since leaving Sighet—he is shocked: "From the depths of the mirror," Wiesel writes, "a corpse gazed back at me." Analysis: Although we know that Elie Wiesel, Night's author, recovered his faith in man and God and went on to lead a productive life after the Holocaust, none of this post-Holocaust biographical information is present in Night. Because the scope of Night does not extend beyond Eliezer's liberation, some readers argue that the memoir offers no hope whatsoever. Eliezer has been witness to the ultimate evil; he has lost his faith in God, and in the souls of men. Night's final line, in which Eliezer looks at himself in the mirror and sees a "corpse," suggests that Eliezer's survival is a stroke of luck, a strange coincidence, no cause for rejoicing. It seems from his closing vision that Eliezer believes that without hope and faith, after having seen the unimaginable, he might as well be dead. After stating that he sees a "corpse" looking back at him, Eliezer adds, "The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me." While it is true that Eliezer, after the Holocaust, thinks of himself as another person, someone utterly changed from the innocent boy who left Sighet, that person, that "corpse," undergoes a metamorphosis. Looking back, Eliezer realizes that he is no longer the corpse who was liberated from Buchenwald. He may be doomed to remember the look in the corpse's eyes, but he manages to keep himself separate from this empty shell of a man. Indeed, it is Eliezer's particular burden to remember the look in the corpse's eyes, because only by remembering and by bearing witness can the survivors of the Holocaust ensure that nothing like the Holocaust will ever happen again. But the memory of evil, as Wiesel realizes, and as Eliezer perhaps comes to realize in the process of separating himself from the corpse he has become as a result of his time in the concentration camps, can coexist with faith, both in God and in man. Night does not end with optimism and a rosy message, but neither does it end as bleakly as many believe. What we are left with are questions—about God's and man's capacity for evil—but no true answers. Night does not try to answer these questions; perhaps this lack of answers is one of the reasons that the story ends with the liberation of Buchenwald. The moral responsibility for remembering the Holocaust, and for confronting these difficult moral and theological questions, falls directly upon us, the readers.

Who is Eliezer?

The narrator of Night and the stand-in for the memoir's author, Elie Wiesel. Night traces Eliezer's psychological journey, as the Holocaust robs him of his faith in God and exposes him to the deepest inhumanity of which man is capable. Despite many tests of his humanity, however, Eliezer maintains his devotion to his father. It is important to note that we learn Eliezer's last name only in passing, and that it is never repeated. His story—which parallels Wiesel's own biography—is intensely personal, but it is also representative of the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Jewish teenagers.

Who is Shlomo?

The narrator of Night and the stand-in for the memoir's author, Elie Wiesel. Night traces Eliezer's psychological journey, as the Holocaust robs him of his faith in God and exposes him to the deepest inhumanity of which man is capable. Despite many tests of his humanity, however, Eliezer maintains his devotion to his father. It is important to note that we learn Eliezer's last name only in passing, and that it is never repeated. His story—which parallels Wiesel's own biography—is intensely personal, but it is also representative of the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Jewish teenagers.

Who is Tibi and Yosi?

Two brothers with whom Eliezer becomes friendly in Buna. Tibi and Yosi are Zionists. Along with Eliezer, they make a plan to move to Palestine after the war.

Who is Dr. Josef Mengele?

When he arrives at Auschwitz, Eliezer encounters the historically infamous Dr. Mengele. Mengele was the cruel doctor who presided over the selection of arrivals at Auschwitz/Birkenau. Known as the "Angel of Death," Mengele's words sentenced countless prisoners to death in the gas chambers. He also directed horrific experiments on human subjects at the camp.