Trauma, Tragedy, & The Self
DescriptionAn essay that explores Night by Elie Wiesel and the many horrors caused to him by the Holocaust.
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ImageAnya Ulinich
The Holocaust was/is the most abhorrent event in human history. Without a doubt, it changed the world and its view on war, proving what humanity could do when it is at its worst. No better is this shown than in the memoirs of Jewish people, as they detail the traumatic and tragic happenings within concentration camps that changed their lives. Night by Elie Wiesel, alongside accounts by other survivors, perfectly illustrates how the horrors of the Holocaust influenced their identities, choices, and feelings toward one another.Concentration camps were designed to destroy the Jewish identity, where religion can be a pillar of their lives. Faith After The Holocaust, from David Halvini’s The Book and the Sword, flawlessly reveals the complicated relationship many had with God after the torture of the Holocaust: “I understand those who were religious before and became irreligious after, and those who were irreligious before and became religious after. I can’t understand those who were religious before and remained religious after. Nothing happened?” (Halvini). Through all the pain, hunger, abuse, and death, some gave up on the idea that there was an almighty being who was meant to protect them. This fundamentally changed so many, their view on Judaism either bolstered or destroyed by it, changing who they were. An excellent example of someone who suffered this is Elie Wiesel, who told readers about his breakdown after this realization in Night. “Every fiber in me rebelled… [God] caused thousands of children to burn… He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I [pray to Him]?” (Wiesel 67). Elie, once a staunch practicer of Kabbalah, lost everything during the Holocaust: his family, his faith, and to an extent, his life. Forever jaded by nightmares, by the pure trauma and tragedy that surrounded him, Elie realized that his faith did not protect him, something that was a large chunk of his identity. He lost hope in God, altering his view of Him and changing his life. However, the pain does not end there, as many were forced to make hard choices, usually leading to more nightmares.When people are stripped of everything, they will do whatever it takes to stay alive. This concept is plainly shown in Night, as readers watch Elie Wiesel make a hard choice: either feed his weakening father or himself. “‘Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father… In fact, you should be getting his rations…’ He was right” (Wiesel 110). Elie, who was still a child, only had his father left, his mother and sister already put to death. But, in the harsh conditions of the camps, he started thinking about his own survival, told to prioritize himself over others. Of course, this devastated him, but Elie knew they would both die if he did not listen. Eventually, his father passed, paining Elie and perpetually changing his life. But it did not matter, because he was alive. There was little to mourn, as he made the right choice, but it still hurt. For Elie and many others, people’s death meant more rations for them, not the loss of a soul whom they loved. And this leads to the worse change of all: feelings.Inside the camps, emotions were sidelined for survival. One of the best ways this is shown during the Holocaust was when the Nazis had Jewish prisoners command their fellow prisoners, usually as an act of raising their “status.” It is laid out in The Role of the Kapo that “Kapos were inmate functionaries whose day-to-day supervision enabled the camps [to run]... They were key cogs in the Nazi policy of ‘prisoner self-administration’” (Drumbl). This meant that certain Jewish prisoners totally ignored any sympathy they had for their peers, beating and killing them regularly for the approval of Nazi officers. For Kapos, it was all a move to survive just a bit longer, showing how the horrors of the Holocaust forced them to let go of all feelings and humanity to stay alive. But what about the feelings of the abused, not the abusers? The poem Buna by Primo Levi says this: “You have broken what’s left of the courage within you… So poor you no longer grieve, so tired you no longer fear” (Levi). Levi, a survivor of the Holocaust, describes how the grueling conditions of the camps took everything from their inhabitants, things so dire and abysmal that even agony was impossible. There was nothing left to feel, to grieve for, just like Elie and his father. The Nazis stripped away everything from them, the last being their souls. And unfortunately, for almost six million Jewish people, they did precisely that. Six million. The sheer pain these systematic and heavily effective death camps left on its people took away every ounce of their feelings, of their humanity, stripping them of life.Together, the accounts of Elie Wiesel in Night and other survivors prove how the horrors of the Holocaust changed them. Whether it was their identity, the choices they made, or the feelings they had, the events the Jewish went through affected every aspect of their lives. Furthermore, these first-hand experiences should be lessons on why learning history is so important. Hate is a powerful weapon that, when used effectively, can cause the worst atrocities in history. But the best weapon against hate is education, because if one can understand the falsehood of their beliefs, then they may be saved from making the same mistakes so many have. If society wants to stop things like the Holocaust, to stop the trauma and tragedy they cause, then they need to learn from their missteps. Because if they do not, they are doomed to repeat them.
Sources
Drumbl, Marc A., Victims Who Victimise, London Review of International Law 4:2 (2016): 217-46, https://academic.oup.com/lril/article/4/2/217/2222520/victims-who-victimise.Halvini, David Weiss, The Book and the Sword: A Life of Learning in the Shadow of Destruction (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), 68-69.Levi, Primo, The Collected Poems of Primo Levi. Trans. Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1988.Wiesel, E., & Wiesel, M. (2004). Night. Penguin Classics.
