"Night" By Elie Wiesel: Live Through The Holocaust
Schlomo Wiesel was Elie Wiesel’s father – they both lived through the Holocaust. Before the Holocaust, Schlomo was a very responsible and trustworthy man – he took care of his family, and (when the Nazis took over) took care of his neighbors. As time went on, he kept his faith, but he then dedicated his entire life to protecting his son and keeping him alive.
In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, he states that his father was an unsentimental man. In that, though, he was very wise. Throughout his entire life he always put other people’s feelings before his own. The Jews were isolated away from the rest of society in “ghettos” surrounded by barbed wire. As soon as they were put into those ghettos, Schlomo was made into the unofficial leader of the Jews. He gladly obliged, though, and fulfilled the role to his best ability. For example, once, in the ghetto, he was telling a story when an SS officer came up to him to spread the word about the transports happening starting the next day. He immediately told the people listening to his story, and told them to notify the rest of the Jews. He fully accepted the role, even if he didn’t want to, and helped his people keep faith no matter how bad things started to get. Even though people started getting slightly wary about these random officers telling them what to do and yelling at them, Schlomo and the rest of the Jews fully cooperated with their orders. At this point, though, he was still hopeful. The Jews were being searched and stripped of any valuables they had, and yet Elie’s father believed somehow they’d still be freed.
Once, Elie asked his father when it was their turn to go, and his father replied with, “The day after tomorrow. Unless… things work out. A miracle perhaps…”. He said that to keep hope – he still believed that they could somehow be saved or rescued. Even in the concentration camps, Schlomo put Elie before himself always. Eventually, he didn’t have a choice – he got too weak to care for himself. The roles were switched – the son took care of the father, and the father was being taken care of by the son. In the end, and only in the end did Schlomo start giving up. He was too weak, fragile, and exhausted to do anything but sit there and give up. He suffered the last few weeks of his life – only being encouraged by his son to keep going. Eventually, Elie had to stop pushing his father. When he finally passed, it wasn’t an easy one. His last word spoken before his death was his son’s name.
