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Wiesel - Elie Wiesel Videos 4 videos
This was Barack Obama’s original campaign slogan, but it didn’t test all that well with the voters.
In this memoir, Eliezer struggles with his relationship with his father during the Holocaust.
Don't come looking to these books for your Monday pick-me-up…unless a good cry really does a lot to lift your spirits. Seriously, we warned you.
Night (Wiesel) 48374 Views
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Description:
In this memoir, Eliezer struggles with his relationship with his father during the Holocaust.
Transcript
- 00:00
Night, a la Shmoop. There have been many powerful books written
- 00:08
about the Holocaust.
- 00:10
They remind us of a tragic time in human history...
- 00:13
...and cause us to reflect on our own fears and insecurities.
- 00:19
More than anything though, they remind us that, not only can our bodies be tortured...
Full Transcript
- 00:24
...but our souls as well.
- 00:27
Long-standing beliefs can be rocked to the core...
- 00:29
...and our faith in humanity can be severely tested.
- 00:36
Consider the relationship you have with your father.
- 00:39
You two may have your highs and your lows...
- 00:41
...but imagine having to go through something like what Eliezer and his father experienced
- 00:47
in Elie Wiesel's Night.
- 00:49
Could you choose between helping your ailing father and acting to ensure your own survival?
- 00:56
We can read about what happened to the victims and survivors of the concentration camps.
- 01:01
We can get a general idea of their daily routine, and how their captors treated them.
- 01:06
But can any of us really come close to understanding the utter despair they must have felt?
- 01:12
How can someone continue to believe that humankind is basically good when they see such atrocities
- 01:18
being committed on a daily basis?
- 01:21
And if they give up on humanity, what reason do they have any longer to show mercy, kindness,
- 01:27
or compassion? In Night, one prisoner actually kills his
- 01:32
own father for a loaf of bread.
- 01:34
Certainly, we can't blame something like that purely on hunger.
- 01:38
He had been reduced to an animal, systematically broken down, day after day.
- 01:45
We can imagine that all sorts of beliefs were tested by the unfortunate prisoners of the
- 01:50
camps.
- 01:50
How did their experiences affect the way they viewed their own religion?
- 01:54
Would their God allow such horrors to befall them?
- 02:01
Surely there were many in Eliezer's company at Buchenwald who felt compelled to renounce
- 02:06
their religion after being subjected to such a living Hell.
- 02:10
And what about their feelings toward race?
- 02:12
Clearly the Nazis had their own issues when it came to ethnicity...
- 02:16
...but Jews who previously exhibited no animosity toward others...
- 02:20
...might have suddenly developed resentment, distrust and... plenty of hatred... toward
- 02:25
pretty much every gentile.
- 02:26
This was Eliezer's struggle... to preserve and hold onto whatever shreds of decency and
- 02:32
virtue he could...
- 02:33
...as he fought at the same time to simply stay alive.
- 02:36
So... put yourself in Eliezer's shoes for a minute.
- 02:40
How would you have dealt with the horrors he faced?
- 02:43
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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