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toc =**__ Night Novel Study - By: Arthur Hsueh __**=



= New Cover for the Book =

On this new cover, it is obvious to see a different image from that of the original versions of the book. This cover includes a few things, but I believe hat they should be included. There are four main parts to the cover: The flames over three prisoners with a cross in the background, a noose of the gallows, a sign that states ‘ARBEIT MACHT FREI’ (Labour Makes [you] Free), and a tanned coloured skull.

The first item, the flames with the prisoners and the cross, represents more than one meaning. This item can be seen as a whole detail or seen as separate parts. The prisoners in this picture have a lot of bags and are definitely not smiling, which partially represents how much the Holocaust had affected the Jewish people’s health physically and mentally. When combined with the fire, it symbolizes the burning and killing of the Jewish people. Lastly, is the cross. Religion played a great role in Eliezer’s life at the beginning of the book, but by the end of the story, he had felt that his God had abandoned him. Fire over the cross illustrates how the Germans of the Holocaust had killed the faith that Eliezer had once thought to be part of him.

The noose isn’t an extremely vital part to this cover but has a tiny impact on Eliezer in the book. Like the fire over the cross, the noose contributed greatly to Eliezer’s thoughts of abandonment.

The sign that says ‘ARBEIT MACHT FREI’ exemplifies Eliezer’s time at Buna, where a great part of the story is told. It was there where he thought that God had abandoned him, where he witnessed the hangings, and suffered the most out of his entire time in the Holocaust.

The final object, in addition to the noose, is not that important is some things that occurs extremely frequently throughout the book; the skull. One can easily relate a skull to death. This is the precise meaning of this symbol; the killing of all the Jewish and other innocent people(s). I tried to make the cover as sad and eerie as possible (definitely not bright and happy) by not keeping the paper filled with a lot of blank white spots. I also tried to make the title gloomier by colouring it with dark colours like black, and dark blue. = = = Background and Biography of Elie Wiesel =

Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania (An area in Romania). His mother and father, Sarah and Chlomo, are not too well known, as they sadly died during the course of the Holocaust, but Elie also had three sisters, Beatrice, Hilda and Tzipora. Tzipora and Elie’s mother did not survive the Holocaust. Sighet was taken over by the Germans in 1940, and in 1944 two ghettos were set up. That same year Elie and his family, along with all the other Jews were deported to Auschwitz. In Auschwitz, Elie was stripped of his identity and was certified as “A-7713,” tattooed on his arm. Elie was left with his father; his mother, Beatrice, Hilda, and Tzipora were separated by gender from him. Some sources note that Elie’s mother and Tzipora were sent to gas chambers upon arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie and his father were later sent to Buna where they were forced slave labourers. Near the end of the war, the men were ordered to march to Buchenwald. Elie’s father became severely sick and suffered from dysentery, starvation and exhaustion. He was beat by a German officer, and abused by other inmates for food; Chlomo Wiesel was sent to the crematoriums only a few weeks before the US Army liberated the concentration camp on April 11, 1945. Elie moved to France after the war, after spending a few years in an orphanage, where he studied and received missed education in Sorbonne. Elie became a journalist and worked with the French newspaper //L’arche.// During that time, Elie met a Nobel Laureate, François Mauriac, who urged him to write about his experience in the concentration camps. The result was a 827-page memoir with the title of //Un di velt hot geshvign// (And the World Remained Silent) in Yiddish, later dubbed //La Nuit//. Eventually, he was able to rewrite a shorter version of just over 100 pages. It was difficult for him to find a publisher but in 1960, ‘Hill and Wang’ agreed to a deal and published it in the US as //Night//. The book was dedicated to Chlomo, Sarah and Tzipora, and included a preface/forward by François Mauriac. Since then, over six million copies have been sold in the Us and counting. Elie won numerous awards for his works, including the Congressional Gold Medal in 1985, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Nobel Peace Price in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression and racism. As soon as the book sold a bit over one thousand copies, Elie received invitations of television interviews and meetings with literary figures. He was extremely attracted to teaching and has taught in many places, currently holding the title of Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at the Boston University in Massachusetts. Elie and his wife, Marion began the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, and has received a lot of support. He is now extremely well known for his written works and his humanitarian work. This work includes many different peace associations, and he also appeared in his last visit to Auschwitz with Oprah Winfrey. He currently lives with his family in the USA, probably in Boston.

= = = History of “Night” + Author – How and Why it was written = Elie Wiesel was liberated from the concentration camps on April 11, 1945, and was sent to an orphanage where he was reunited with his only surviving family members, his older sisters Hilda and Beatrice. While continuing his severely interrupted sessions of studying the Talmud, Wiesel became a journalist in Sorbonne, France. He began as a translator, but later became the chief foreign correspondent of a French newspaper. Wiesel made a vow that he would not speak about his life in the concentration camps for ten years. He believed that it was “long enough to regain possession of my memory.” On a missionary trip to Brazil, Elie finally began to write about his experiences. According to Wikipedia Wiesel states, “I wrote feverishly, breathlessly, without rereading. I wrote to testify, to stop the dead from dying, to justify my own survival ... My vow of silence would soon be fulfilled; next year would mark the tenth anniversary of my liberation ... The pages piled up on my bed. I slept fitfully, never participating in the ship's activities, constantly pounding away on my little portable, oblivious of my fellow passengers ..." When Wiesel finished he had an 862-page manuscript in which he dubbed // Un di Velt Hot Geshvign // ("And the World Remained Silent"). He eventually got a ch ance to publish it in Buenos Aires in a shorter version of 245 pages. Sadly, it did not attract any attention, and Wiesel continued as a journalist. As he continued his career, he decided to interview the French prime minister Pierre Mendes-France, where he met Nobel laureate novelist, and later good friend, François Mauriac. Mauriac was greatly intrigued with Jesus, and related almost everything he said to Jesus. At one point Wiesel couldn’t take the word ‘Jesus’ and more and said a phrase that embarrassed both Mauriac and Wiesel himself. Mauriac replied in one phrase: “You know, maybe you should talk about it.” Thus Wiesel agreed to Mauriac’s statement; he believed that everyone must know about this terrible event and let everyone know that it must never happen again. He translated his original version of //Un di Velt Hot Geshvign// and gave it to Mauriac one year later. Unfortunately no publisher would agree to publish it; they said it was too ‘morbid.’ However, in 1985 a man named Jerome Linden from a French publishing house named Les Editions de Minuit, gave in to publishing the book. It was titled as //La Nuit// (Night). Wiesel dedicated the book to his mother, father, and little sister, with a preface by Mauriac. In the US, Wiesel’s book agent Georges Borchardt, also met a fork in the road. Wikipedia quotes Wiesel: “Some thought the book too slender (American readers seemed to prefer fatter volumes), others too depressing (American readers seemed to prefer optimistic books). Some felt that its subject was too little known, others that it was too well known." Eventually in 1960, Arthur Wang from the publishing company “Hill and Wang” agreed to publish it. It sold 1,046 in its first 18 months, but attracted quite a bit of interest from many people. Soon he was asked to be interviewed by the media and attend meetings with famous people. Over 300,000 copies were being sold a year in the US, and by 2011 over six million copies were sold, available in 30 languages. It was chosen in January 2006 for Oprah’s book club, and in February, was the no.1 bestseller in the //New York Times.// = First impressions of Novel, Characters etc. = = =   When I first received and saw the book, I doubted it a lot if it was going to be a good read. Knowing the book was about the Holocaust, I partially understood the effect of the eerie cover and horrid picture on the back, but it didn’t really attract my attention. I if were to see this book in a a library and take it off of a shelf, being a person that usually judges a book by it's cover, I would probably put it back. The fact that the book I was only 107 pages surprised me. Normally, I would have anticipated a grade eight novel study book to be quite a bit thicker; at least over 200 pages and a larger page size. My first opinion was that the book was probably going to be quite boring, along with the fact that the chapters didn’t even have numbers (I personally thought that was, in terms of stories, a bit lame). The only thing that really grabbed my attention was the accolade //Winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize// and the quotes inside and on the book. This lifted my hopes the slightest bit. When I started reading I realized that my prediction was partially correct in the first chapter; most of it was quite boring or you could put it as a bit of a flat entry. Particularly in the exact first sentence of the book: “They called him Moshe the Beadle, as though he never had a surname in life.” Usually from past classes, a first sentence is extremely important on bringing us to want to keep on reading, listening etc. as well as tell a bit on what is going to happen later in a written work. This first sentence seemed very plain to me, and did not make me feel like reading on, nor did it tell me about the main idea of the story. It would only be later until I realized what that first sentence really meant. The beginning describes a lot about Moshe the Beadle, in which I think is quite an effective way to describe the theme of the book (First thing I applaud this book for). However it think that Wiesel took too long to get straight to the point that he wanted to make. It began to get a bit more interesting when I got to the part in which Moshe the Beadle returns shot, and when the Germans entered the home of Eliezer. I gradually started to feel more pulled towards the book when the ghettos were set up and when the entire village was set up for deportation. After that part, the book was a lot more engaging and I succumbed to the adrenaline of the story. I personally believe that the most powerful part of the book was the forward, written by Francois Mauriac. It was the part that summed up the entire book in just over 4 pages, yet kept the emotion. My first impression of Eliezer was an extremely religious teenager. He was enthusiastic to learn the secrets of Jewish mysticism, and to learn more about the Zohar and the cabbalistic books. Eliezer doesn’t seem to be a serious person, nor a very energetic one either, almost as it a neutral person that went on with everyday life. Moshe the Beadle was similarly the same character to Eliezer. He was very religious and quite joyful, before he got shot. Personally, I would want to be someone like Moshe the Beadle; it would be nice to be a Jew that lives a mysterious life based on religion, as well as being loved by everybody. = Poem that tells the plot of the novel = The poem was too long so I put it on another page: http://nightnovelstudy.wikispaces.com/Poem+that+tells+the+plot+of+the+novel = Eliezer’s Family Tree = Although this family tree may seem plain, I believe that it is still important to remember that Eliezer had siblings and a mother. Most of the story depicts the life of Eliezer and his father in the concentration camps, and almost never mentioned his mother and sisters. At the end of the book everyone in the family except Eliezer himself is dead. This shows how much the Holocaust had affected Jewish families; many families only had one member survive, two if they were able to endure all the labour and pain, and escape execution. Along with the fact that many families were separated also shows how much the Holocaust affected tradition by cutting it off. = Characters - Where are they now? = Sadly, only Eliezer and his two sisters, Hilda and Beatrice survived. They currently live in a state and place that could never compare to the horrors that they were forced to adapt to. Eliezer is now an excellent Professor of Humanities at Boston University. His second oldest sister, Beatrice, moved to Montreal, Canada, while his oldest sister, Hilda, moved to France, but also finally moved to North America.

Eliezer stayed in an orphanage for a while after Buchenwald was liberated. There he was reunited with his sisters. Later, he moved to France where he received a lot of education that he missed in his childhood, and quickly began translator job for a local newspaper. Eliezer also taught Hebrew to support his basic needs, and fortunately became a full time journalist for another newspaper. Eliezer swore to keep silent about his vile life in the concentration camps for ten years. Eliezer met a good friend, a Nobel Prize laureate, that encouraged Eliezer to break his silence and speak out against this cruelty. Having known that those ten years had passed, Eliezer agreed to his friend’s suggestion and furiously began writing. After numerous year and days and weeks, Eliezer had finally completed a book and found a publisher to fully publish the book. His book took interest from many people and gradually Eliezer became well known around the world.

Beatrice went in a completely different direction in her life after the war. After reconvening with her siblings, she decided to move to Canada, where she specifically chose to live a life in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. There, like Eliezer, she slowly regained complete conscious of reality and decided to look for a job to support her life. After weeks of searching, she earned a job similar to the one she had before the Holocaust, a simple shopworker. She did not make a lot of money but earned enough to support her daily needs. Once fully welcomed in her job, her talent for art, specifically painting, became recognized and was quickly offered a novice job at an art institute. Beatrice’s artwork excelled in terms of artistry and began to earn money by selling her paintings. She was definitely no longer seen as a rookie. At the art institute, Beatrice fell in love with another male artist working there, and before long, the two of them got married. Together, they had two children, and currently still lives in Montreal, in a well sized family house.

Hilda did not become particularily well known or famous in any of the places that she lived in, but she lived a very solitary and harmonius life. She was the one that found out that Eliezer had survived the concentration camps but was overcome grief about the fact that her father had died. She too moved to Canada, but on the other side, British Columbia. She moved to Vancouver, where she earn the right of citizenship. She quickly found a job, but had to learn some English before she started. The job wasn’t energy consuming nor hard, but offered a good salary. As she got to a pretty old age, she retired with a large amount of savings. By then she had already gotten married, had one child, and made many of friends. She likes to keep herself busy by knitting and cooking. Today, Hilda Wiesel is in excellent health, and is living a very nice life in the city of Vancouver.

= Cellphone Photos on Eliezer’s Phone =



= Eliezer’s Satchel  =

In Eliezer's satchel, if he were to have one, would include his father’s knife and spoon, some pieces of stale bread, a pair of striped pants and a striped shit, a part of an electrical wire, a wooded fragment of a broken violin, and a tattered piece of rope from the gallows. I chose these parts because they played an important part in the course of Eliezer's time in the concentration camps, as well as a small effect on Eliezer’s beliefs.

The knife and the spoon would be an extremely important part of Eliezer's satchel. I would probably be the only thing that Eliezer would remember of his family, particularly his father. In the book Eliezer states the knife and the spoon as “The inheritance.” An inheritance from a father to son is extremely important, and it would be part of tradition to do so. The pieces of bread signify the hunger that Eliezer went through, as it was one of the only two things they could eat, bread and soup. “Bread, soup – these were my whole life.” (Wiesel 50) The striped pair of pants and the striped shirt explains the removal of one’s identity. All the prisoners were forced to wear the same thing. By doing this, the Germans completely destroyed each prisoner’s identity by showing that all of them were worth the same. A violin, as many of us know, produces music, but in Eliezer’s satchel there is only a fragment of the entire instrument. It symbolises the destroying of the Jewish culture and tradition, which includes music; an entire piece smashed to pieces, and will almost never be put back together. In the beginning of the book Eliezer was extremely close to religion, and did not quest his faith. After witnessing a young boy, the //pipel’s,// hanging, Eliezer’s perspective of his religion to a serious turn. “To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter.” (Wiesel 61) Eliezer began to feel that his God had abandoned and deserted him. = Song that Relates to book = All that we can do is just survive All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive (X2)
 * __ "Red Sector A" – By __****__ RUSH __**

Ragged lines of ragged grey Skeletons, they shuffle away Shouting guards and smoking guns Will cut down the unlucky ones

I clutch the wire fence until my fingers bleed A wound that will not heal A heart that cannot feel Hoping that the horror will recede Hoping that tomorrow we'll all be freed

Sickness to insanity Prayer to profanity Days and weeks and months go by Don't feel the hunger Too weak to cry

I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate Are the liberators here? Do I hope or do I fear? For my father and my brother, it's too late But I must help my mother stand up straight

Are we the last ones left alive? Are we the only human beings to survive? (X2) = = I believe that this song relates the time of the Holocaust a lot. This song was actually meant to be that way; the lead singer Geddy was inspired to write this song after hearing his mother’s stories about her liberation from the concentration camps. This song is extremely descriptive about how life was like in the Holocaust. It literally illustrates and defines the word “Holocaust.” We can start at the beginning of the song, “all we can do is just survive. . .” and moving down; the Jewish prisoners could definitely only try to survive. They certainly had bodies that had lost their original beige colour almost as it ‘skeletons,’ there were constantly ‘shouting guards’ ‘cutting down’ the unlucky ones. Mentally the Jewish people were severely affected as well, they have a wound that will not heal, their hearts have had their sense of feeling demolished, and everybody hoped that the ‘horror will recede’ and that ‘we’ll all be freed.’ This explicit relation makes this song extremely powerful and tells us a lot about how the Holocaust heavily affected people of all sorts. = Word Search  =
 * __Relation to Book__**

In this word search, I chose words that partially fell in the story of **//Night//** and words that symbolise important themes and events of the book. These words can be separated into sections: places, people, religion, and important objects, themes and events. The places that were included are place names that Eliezer and his father went to during their time as Jewish prisoners. For example, Eliezer and his father stayed in **Auschwitz**, as well as their hometown, **Sighet**, and the **ghetto** set up there. The people that I decided to put in were people that played a minor, but extremely important role. **Moshe the Beadle** was included; tried to get people to listen to him, but he was laughed off. **Madame Schachter**, seeing the fire, was foreshadowing of something that would kill millions of Jews. There were only a few words that pertained to religion, like the **cabbala**, and the **Talmud**. Religion played a great role in Eliezer’s life in the beginning of //Night//; he studied the cabbala and the Talmud a lot, but later lost **faith** and came to believe that God and **abandoned** him. **Bread** is an important word that should definitely be put in, as well as the **knife and spoon**. The knife and spoon was the only thing that Eliezer could probably remember his father by, and bread was one of the only sources of food. Along with that, many Jews endured a lot of **suffering** and hoped one day for **liberation.** = Magazine Quiz =


 * 1) Who did Eliezer choose as his master?
 * 2) Madame Schachter
 * 3) His Father
 * 4) Moshe the Beadle
 * 5) Madame Kahn
 * 6) Moshe the Beadle returned from __­­­__shot in the leg because he was a Jewish.
 * 7) Galacia, foreigner
 * 8) Galacia, elder
 * 9) Auschwitz, foreigner
 * 10) Transylvania, child
 * 11) How many ghettos were set up in Sighet Transylvania?
 * 12) None were set up
 * 13) Two
 * 14) Ghetto?
 * 15) One
 * 16) What did Madame Schachter see in the cattle car while being deported from Sighet?
 * 17) Other Jews
 * 18) Fire
 * 19) Fireworks
 * 20) Cows
 * 21) What did the sign on the door atAuschwitzsay?
 * 22) Work to Live!
 * 23) Today is (your) Death
 * 24) Work to get soup!
 * 25) Work is Liberty!
 * 26) Eliezer was stripped of his identity and became known as.
 * 27) A-7714
 * 28) A-7769
 * 29) A-7713
 * 30) A-7731
 * 31) What happened when Idek the Kapo discovered Eliezer saw him rape the Polish girl?
 * 32) He got whipped
 * 33) He was shot
 * 34) He got more bread and soup
 * 35) He was banished from the camp
 * 36) What was Eliezer diagnosed with before he had to run toBuchenwald?
 * 37) Dysentery
 * 38) AIDS
 * 39) Swelling Foot
 * 40) The Black Death – Bubonic plague
 * 41) What did Eliezer’s friend Juliek play on his violin in the shed, after running from Buna?
 * 42) A rhythm to a rap
 * 43) A segment of Beethoven’s concerto
 * 44) Some Hasidic melodies
 * 45) He never played anything
 * 46) On what day were Eliezer the other Jewish prisoners liberated fromBuchenwald?
 * 47) April 11, 1945
 * 48) April 11, 1944
 * 49) Eliezer was liberated?
 * 50) April 10, 1945

Answers to Magazine Quiz

 * 1) Who did Eliezer choose as his master?
 * 2) Madame Schachter
 * 3) His Father
 * 4) Moshe the Beadle
 * 5) Madame Kahn
 * 6) Moshe the Beadle returned from __­­­__shot in the leg because he was a Jewish.
 * 7) Galacia, foreigner
 * 8) Galacia, elder
 * 9) Auschwitz, foreigner
 * 10) Transylvania, child
 * 11) How many ghettos were set up in Sighet Transylvania?
 * 12) None were set up
 * 13) Two
 * 14) Ghetto?
 * 15) One
 * 16) What did Madame Schachter see in the cattle car while being deported from Sighet?
 * 17) Other Jews
 * 18) Fire
 * 19) Fireworks
 * 20) Cows
 * 21) What did the sign on the door atAuschwitzsay?
 * 22) Work to Live!
 * 23) Today is (your) Death
 * 24) Work to get soup!
 * 25) Work is Liberty!
 * 26) Eliezer was stripped of his identity and became known as.
 * 27) A-7714
 * 28) A-7769
 * 29) A-7713
 * 30) A-7731
 * 31) What happened when Idek the Kapo discovered Eliezer saw him rape the Polish girl?
 * 32) He got whipped
 * 33) He was shot
 * 34) He got more bread and soup
 * 35) He was banished from the camp
 * 36) What was Eliezer diagnosed with before he had to run toBuchenwald?
 * 37) Dysentery
 * 38) AIDS
 * 39) Swelling Foot
 * 40) The Black Death – Bubonic plague
 * 41) What did Eliezer’s friend Juliek play on his violin in the shed, after running from Buna?
 * 42) A rhythm to a rap
 * 43) A segment of Beethoven’s concerto
 * 44) Some Hasidic melodies
 * 45) He never played anything
 * 46) On what day were Eliezer the other Jewish prisoners liberated fromBuchenwald?
 * 47) April 11, 1945
 * 48) April 11, 1944
 * 49) Eliezer was liberated?
 * 50) April 10, 1945