Survival (on The Book Night) :: essays research papers

The book Night is about the final solution as experienced by Elie Weisel from inside the concent limit camps. During World warfare II billions of innocent Jews were taken from their homes to concentration camps, resulting in the deaths of 6 million spate. There were homoy methods of survival for the prisoners of the holocaust during World War II. In the book Night, there were three main modes of survival, corporate trust, family, and victuals. From the examples in the book Night, faith proved to be the most successful in helping people survive the holocaust. While obtaining food seemed to be the entire purpose of vivification for the people imprisoned in the camps, it often killed more people than it saved. though focusing on food seemed like a logical social function to do when you are being starved, it was not al guidances very legal in helping people survive. There are many situations in the book illustrating how living for the sole purpose of acquiring food&8212 chthonic any condition&8212could turn out to be lethal. Elie wrote of one time, during an air power raid, when two half-full cauldrons of soup were left unguarded in a path. in spite of their hunger, the prisoners were too frightened for their lives to even touch the cauldrons. One brave man dragged himself to the cauldrons intending to drink some of the forbidden soup. Before he could so a great deal as take a small taste of the soup, he was shot, and he fell to the ground, dead. In Night, Elie recalled him as a Poor hero, committing suicide for a ration of soup (Weisel, 56). Later in the story, there is yet another example of how food could kill. While the prisoners were in cattle cars, being moved to a contrasting camp, a worker in one of the towns they passed through threw a magical spell of bread into one of the cars, and watched as they literally killed for just a mouthful. finished that experience, Elie witnessed a man kill his own father for a some meager crumbs of bread, onl y then to see that man be killed moments subsequent for the same small portion of bread. Men threw themselves on top of each other, stamping on each other, tearing at each other. Wild beasts of prey, with animal shame in their eyes an extraordinary vitality had seized then, sharpening their teeth and nails (Weisel, 95). Clearly, food as a method survival wasnt a particularly effective way to stay alive.