Monday, February 28, 2005
Something Meaningful from DCM?- steph w
I took a DCM course over interim called “The Holocaust, history and human nature.” We were required to read a book called Night by Elie Wiesel. That was about two or three weeks ago, and the book is still with me. I found it hard to read but at the same time it was interesting. If I were a holocaust survivor, I wouldn’t be able to write about my experiences, let alone write a coherent book with as much symbolism as Wiesel used.
As I was reading, I found so many parallels between what Wiesel was going through and the book of Exodus. It was the opposite of Exodus. Instead of the Israelites being freed from slavery and captivity, as in Exodus, the Jews were subjected to slavery and even death after being free. The use of imagery from Exodus was amazing. It says in Exodus that God guided the Israelites to freedom as a pillar of cloud during the day and as a pillar of fire at night. Wiesel uses the image of fire in so many places in the book. When he and his family are sent to the concentration camp, a lady on the train keeps ranting about fire. She keeps saying that she sees it out the miniscule window on the train car. When they finally arrive at the camp, they see the fire from the crematory filling the night sky. It’s no surprise that the book’s title happens to be Night. All of the important events in that book happen at night. The use of fire is a very obvious and prevalent symbol in the book as well.
Wiesel also uses many Jewish customs as a means to convey the loss of religion that he undoubtedly obtains. When his father dies, Wiesel says that the ritual prayers were not said; no candles were lit in memory of him. There was no fire (in the form of the unlit candles). When Wiesel said that the ritual prayers were not said, that was another metaphor for God’s absence. Like the candles were not lit and the prayers not said, that was the major climax of Wiesel’s journey. At that point, he lost all faith in God and man. That book was incredibly trying and it made me think about the Holocaust in a completely new perspective. It was a faith stretcher.