Night Journal Entries

Journal Entry #1
14 December 2007
Page # 1-3
"I was twelve."
Eliezer is very young in the begginning of the book, he also seems quite interested in his religion and its doctrines. Eliezer seems fond of Mosche the Beadle and they are good friends which is odd because Mosche seems so much older than Eliezer but is still willing to teach him about the cabala. It's sad when Mosche is expelled from the town along with many other foreign Jews to experience the horrible events of the police. The people of Sighet are too optimistic about the fate of their lives and of the foreign Jews lives. If they weren't so optimistic maybe they could have been saved from the Nazis.
Journal Entry #2
15 December 2007
Page # 11-14
"The ghetto was to be completely wiped out. We were to leave street by street, starting the following day."
The Jews should have realized how strong the Nazis and the Hungarian police forces were before they had to be put into ghettos and then deported to who knows where like many before them. It's actually quite ignorant to think that in the middle of war that anybody will be spared because they won't, war is brutal. It will be interesting to see the changing opinions of God in the book because I believe that many of the Jews' minds will be altered because of the war.
Journal Entry #3
16 December 2007
Page #21
"After two days of traveling, we began to be tortured by thirst. Then the heat became unbearable."
It's sad how badly the Jewish people were treated during the war and that was only the start of it all. It's amazing to think that these horrible events only happened about sixty-five years ago. The elements that the Jewish people had to go through are sickening, like the cramped quarters, heat, cold, abuse, and starvation. It must seem like a bad dream to the main character of our book, like he states numerous times. It's a wonder how some of these survivors got out alive.
Journal Entry #4
17 December 2007
Page #32
"Never shall I 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 God Himself. Never."
The pain and suffering that the Jewish people is unbelievable, especially for the lives that were just beginning. The disappearing faith in God, for Eliezer, is slowly creeping into his mind because he cannot believe that God would put them through all of this if he truly existed. His reference to the night can be referred to the title of the book because it is that nocturnal silence that truly made him believe that his God, his soul, and his dreams died. His short time in being presented with the consequences of war changed him forever.
Journal Entry #5
18 December 2007
Page #42
"Some talked of God, of his mysterious ways, of the sins of the Jewish people, and of their future deliverance. But I had ceased to pray. How I sympathized with Job! I did nit deny God's existence, but I doubted His absolute justice."
It's amazing to think how a war and incarceration can change a person and their views of life and of God. Eliezer started out as a very religious boy who studied his religion's testaments all of the time. But now he is losing faith in God and his justice for his people. I wonder if his views will be the same at the end of the book, whether he will once again believe in God fully or if he will cut his life off from the religious customs?
Journal Entry #6
19 December 2007
Page #52
"What is more, any anger I felt at that moment was directed, not against the Kapo, but against my father. I was angry with him, for not knowing hot to avoid Idek's outbreak. That is what concentration camp life had made of me."
Eliezer's love for many things has died down and now his love for his father has succumbed slightly too. Eliezer has grown more accustomed to concentration camp life than his father has since he is older and is more weak. It must be hard for Eliezer to grow up in such devastating conditions, since he is in such a horrible place and because his father is not as strong and keen as Eleizer himself is. It's interesting to know that no anger was directed at the Kapo since he and the other Nazi men are the ones inflicting the pain upon the Jewish people.
Journal Entry #7
20 December 2007
Page #66
"I did not fast, mainly to please my father, who had forbidden me to do so. But further, there was no longer any reason why I should fast. I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my bowl of soup, I saw in the gesture an act of rebellion and protest against Him."
Eliezer has totally given up on God because he and the other Jews continue to suffer without redemption. Eliezer could not stand the fact that God never stopped their misery and He stayed quiet day after day. By eating the soup instead of fasting Eliezer is rebelling against God and his old traditions. I wonder if he will stay a nonbeliever, I think he will because he states earlier that he will never forget these events, that they will stay with him forever and if they stay with them how will he ever be able to forgive God?
Journal Entry #8
21 December 2007
Page #78
"I learned after the war the fate of those who had stayed behind in the hospital. They were quite simply liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation."
It's quite disappointing that Eliezer and his father left the camp when just two days later the Jews were freed by the Russians. It must be hard for him to look back and think what a bad decision it was to be evacuated with the other men. Realizing what a mistake it was for him just adds to all his depression which I'm sure he felt for a long time. I could never imagine being in his position at such a young age and experiencing all that.
Journal Entry #9
22 December 2007
Page 90
"I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget that concert, given to an audience of dying and dead men! To this day, whenever I hear Beethoven played my eyes close and out of the dark rises the sad, pale face of my Polsih friend, as he said farewell on his violin to an audience of dying men."
It's nice that Juliek played his violin during his last hours of living, I would do the same if I knew I was about to die. It's crazy what all those men had to go through just to live another day of torture and work that nearly kills them. Their tribulations must be especially hard when you have family members fighting for their knowing you couldn't give up because their own will to survive lies in you hands.
Journal Entry #10
23 December 2007
Page #109
"One day when I was able to get up, after gathering all my stength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.
The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me."
Eliezer sees himself as two different people after the Holocaust occurs. The young innocent boy who lived a peaceful life in Sighet and the boy who was forced to become a man in a short amount of time and to fight for his life by going through the horrors of the Holocaust. He'll never forget the look in the corpse's eyes because the losses of his whole family, his sickness, and his life are totally ruined by the war.