Journal ( Night)

log 1
pg 4
1/5/08
"Moshe had changed. there was no longer any joy in his eyes. He no longer sang. He no longer talked to me of God or of the cabbala, but only of what he had seen. People refused not only to believe his stories but even to listen to them."
"You can't understand. I have been saved miraculously. I managed to get back here. Where did I get the strength from?I wanted to come back to sighet to tell you the story of my death. So that you could prepare yourselves while there was still time. To live? I don't attach any importance to my life any more. I'm alone. No, I wanted to come back, and to warn you. And see how it is, no one will listen to me. . . ."
I was impressed when I read these quotes not because of the persistence that Moshe put into trying to get people to believe in him but because of how the people of Sighet treated Moshe when they realized he was telling them something that didn't please them. I was amazed at how after all the years that his neighbors and friends had known him and cared for him that only now when he told them a truth they did not want to hear or believe did they treat him like a madman, only now did they begin to wish he would leave them be, only after he came back and they saw what had become of Moshe and what they knew in their subconscious would become of them. As I read these things and saw how everyone turned their backs on him and refused to believe him it struck me that if this was how they treated a life long friend how would they treat strangers when they were in despair? would they even care about the fate of others or would they only care about their own welfare?

Log 2
pg 9
1/5/08
"When the three days were up, there was a new decree:
every Jew must wear the yellow star.
Some of the prominent members of the community came to see my father-who had highly placed connections in the Hungarian police-to ask him what he thought of the situation. My father did not consider it so grim-but perhaps he did not want to dishearten the others or rub salt in their wounds:
"'The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? you don't die of it . . . "'
(poor Father! of what then did you die?"
The yellow star might not have killed their body or made their heart stop beating but it did start the process of dehumanization. Because of their religion, because of their beliefs they were forced to stand out, they didn't know this but in standing by and putting on a smile as their assassins maltreated them they were actually letting themselves be known as less than humans. That the world could stand by and watch as this happened to people they had known, that they could support the slow death of the souls of children is incredible. The death of Wiesel's spirit and desire to live happened long before his actual body started giving out as did many others who had no other reason to live but to keep food in their stomach.

log 3
pg 23
1/5/08
"she continued to scream, breathless, her voice broken by sobs. "'Jews, listen to me! I can see a fire! there are huge flames! It is a furnace!"'
It was as though she were possessed by an evil spirit which spoke from the depths of her being."
Madame Schachter screamed this relentlessly throughout the transfer and often the young men in her cart had to hit her, gag her, and nearly kill her so that they could calm their own hearts which were racing with fear, at first they pitied her and tried to calm themselves telling each other that she was thirsty and that was why she kept talking of a fire devouring her, however they soon grew tired of hearing her screams and staying awake for the rest of the night because of their nerves so they began beating her more often. Madame Schachter was misunderstood and ignored much like how Moshe was misunderstood and ignored. She did speak from the depths of her being but she spoke not out of evil but out of the truth she wanted to tell the Jews, because she wanted to save them.

log 4
pg 25
1/6/08
"We had forgotten the existence of Madame Schachter. Suddenly, we heard terrible screams:
"'Jews, look! look through the window! Flames! Look!'"
and as the train stopped,we saw this time that flames were gushing out of a tall chimney into the black sky. Madame Schachter was silent herself. once more she had become dumb, indifferent, absent and had gone back to her corner. We looked at the flames in the darkness. There was an abominable odor floating in the air."
This passage is so full of emotion that I almost feel as I'm there watching this happen, as the realization of the passengers of the train realized that the person they had treated so horribly, the person whom they'd called crazy and whom they'd pitied and said was possessed by evil spirits had actually been trying to help them and now as they realized their fate it was too late to go back and try to make everything right, And now that they saw their mistake and felt their fear of this inferno and the horror of their actions in not believing the people who had tried so hard to save them.

log 5
pg 31
1/6/08
"For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?"
This revolt, this doubt first occurred when he is introduced to the furnace were they burned the people and where they tossed babies in the air as target practice, where Wiesel first saw the pleasure that humans can have in the harm of others, in the torture of those they thought weaker, This doubt and revolt of God's justice would stay with him and that is what struck me the most, that another human just as imperfect as the next could think that they have the RIGHT to take away the faith of a child so innocent as Eliezer was. That those people could think that they are superior enough to be able to judge and hate people who did them no harm.
It makes me want to hit something

log 6
pg 32
1/6/08
"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into Wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
Never shall if forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as Go Himself. Never"
Every time I read this passage it just about kills me.
Every line here makes me speechless, I have no idea how to express the sorrow and pain that I feel coming out of myself for this young boy who's very soul was murdered, whose life ended on that painful day. I wish, really wish that he hadn't had to go through that to show the world the horror of the murdering of innocent people, people who did no harm to anyone. . .
I just hate that I couldn't help him

log 7
pg 63
1/6/08
'" What are You, my God,"' I thought angrily, "'compared to this afflicted crowd, proclaiming to You their faith, their anger, their revolt? What does Your greatness mean, Lord of the universe, in the face of all this weakness, this decomposition, and this decay? Why do You still trouble their sick minds, their crippled bodies?"'
This passage really caught my eye because of the anger and the resentment that is towards God that Wiesel makes known through it, and because of the difference in his faith that had occurred to him over the time period in which he was treated as if he had no soul as if he was just a body empty of a spirit and desire to live. I was surprised at the change that had happened to his faith. He went from being so devoted he wanted to study the cabbala at a very young age and he wanted so much to understand the truths of God however as soon as he saw the murder in the eyes of his assassins and he saw the cruelty and horror that existed in the world he began to hate God's ways and the way people bowed down to God even in the position that they were in.

log 8
pg 65
1/6/08
" Once, I had believed profoundly that upon one solitary deed of mine, one solitary prayer, depended the salvation of the world.
This day I had ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was without man. Without love or mercy. I had ceased to be anything but ashes, yet I felt myself to be stronger than the Almighty, to whom my life had been tied for so long. I stood amid that praying congregation, observing it like a stranger."
This passage reminded me so much of the way Siddhartha had felt when he said that when he had stopped searching he had begun finding, in the same way the strength that Wiesel had
hoped to find in prayer and faith for when he was young he had now found by not hoping and only trying to survive. This strength he describes and says he has in him only because he had cut off the tie he had had with God and his beliefs seems so strong and powerful as if the only thing that had been holding him back was something of a fear of displeasing God and when he got rid of that fear he also got rid any personal restraint he had owned.