Night
Elie Wiesel



Eliezer, a Jewish teenager who, lived in the town of Sighet, in Hungarian Transylvania. Eliezer studies the torah and when his teacher Moshe the Beadle is taken, with 200 other Jews, to a field. Moshe the Beadle is shot and left to die. Moshe survives the shooting and somehow finds his way back to Sighet. Covered in blood Moshe knocks on Eliezer’s door. Moshe tells the story of the attempted murder against him but is not believed. Soon later Hungary is taken over by the Nazi party. Not long after, Jews are forced into Ghettos and laws start taking their rights away. Less than a year later, almost everyone is herded into cattle cars and taken to the concentration camp of Birkenau, the gateway to Auschwitz. Eliezer and his father are separated for his mother and sister and stripped of their belongings. Eliezer and his father pass the test to be put to work and not immediately murdered. But, on their way to their barracks Eliezer and his father see an open fire pit; the Nazis are killing babies by the hundreds. After the horrific couple months at Birkenau, the Jews are deported to Buna, a work camp. Eliezer is forced to work in an electrical-fittings factory. The prisoners of Buna are forced to watch fierce beatings and especially hangings. On one occasion the Nazis hang a young boy of less then 13. After months in the camp, Eliezer is required to have surgery on his frozen foot; however the Nazis decide to evacuate the camp because the Red-Army is moving in fast. Eliezer has the choice to stay in the infamy but, chooses to evacuate the camp too to stay with his father. In the middle of a snowstorm, the camp of Buna is forced on a death march. They are forced to run over 50 miles to Gleiwitz, a death camp. Some prisoners are herded into cattle cars to go on another deadly journey. Only 12 remain when they finally reach the camp of Buchenwald. Eliezer’s father dies of physical abuse. Eliezer survives and is liberated: April 11, 1945