We Shall Overcome

Many people think of the Holocaust as the story of the 6 million Jews who died, but the real Holocaust is much more than that. In the book Night, we can read about one of the rare triumphs of human survival emotionally, and physically. This emotional and physical struggle became more evident during my trip to Poland in which my own perceptions of the Holocaust were drastically changed in which I learned why we cannot hand Hitler posthumous victories.

The book Night was written by Holocaust survivor Ellie Wiesel. In the book, he writes about his life before, during, and after the Holocaust. Before the Holocaust, Ellie was a prominent believer in Judaism. He practiced Torah, read Talmud, and practiced Kabala with his Rabbi Moshe the Beadle. Of course, this was all occurring before the time of the Holocaust. When the Nazi’s invaded Ellie’s town, he did not, one bit, begin to put down his practices of Judaism.

Auschwitz concentration camp, arrival of Hungarian...

Hungarian Jewish children and an elderly woman on ...

"Selection" of Jews from Hungary at Auschwitz-Birk...

After being put into ghettos, Ellie and his while family were deported to Auschwitz- Birkenau where he never saw his sister and his mom again. This was the beginning of Ellie starting to lose faith in Judaism. Of course, Ellie was not the only one who began to lose faith. Many people could not believe that such a horrible thing like the Shoa was even possible. For this reason, many others started losing their faith in G-d. Judaism was not the main aspect of life. Now, the main aspect is survival. Ellie Wiesel did survive the Holocaust. I believe that one of the main reasons to his survival was the fact that he had his father with him the whole time. Only at the end of the Shoa did his father actually die. The book Night is a personal story of one...