“Night” begins by recalling an experience that Francois Mauriac had with a Tel Aviv journalist. This journalist is later revealed to be Night’s author, Elie Wiesel. One point that I found fascinating was that Mauriac notes that his most haunting memories of the Occupation involved events he was not actually a witness to. Instead, Mauriac claimed that most haunting memory came secondhand from his wife, who told of trainloads of children at the Austerlitz station in Paris, awaiting deportation when the entire reason they had come was for sanctuary. It is interesting to see, I think, how genocide affects even those who are not directly involved; in this case, that would be the actions of foreign governments. Many foreign governments, including that of the United States, turned away those seeking sanctuary from the Nazi regime.
In section three, the relationship between Eliezer and his father is illustrated further. In the barracks, thousands of Jews are stripped, shaved, and made to wear prison uniforms. When Eliezer’s father asks to use the bathroom, he is beaten by the Kapo, a prisoner designated to keep order. Eliezer seemingly has a doubt in humanity, and this leads to the beginning of his loss in the faith of man. While Eliezer is appalled that he was unable to help his father, he is also undergoing transformation; he claims that the day before, he would have defended his father. This illustrates how genocide can affect individuals; we see this in Eliezer’s own transformation.
In both films, we see how genocide affects people on all levels. In Conspiracy, a meeting is held on how to best deal with what the Nazi regime sees as the “Jewish Problem.” Once the meeting comes to order, however, it becomes clear that the purpose of the meeting is to receive orders from the SS, who is taking the reins away from other German agencies, such as the Interior Ministry. Wilhelm Stuckart, a lawyer representing the Interior Ministry, is quickly silenced when he brings up issues with others viewing the Jews as “subhuman beasts.” Genocide creates an order which is based on fear; Stuckart is informed that should he continue to advertise such views, he might get unwanted attention from the SS. Similarly, the theme in The Soviet Story is order based on fear; genocide creates fear in people.
I believe that Eliezer’s faith in man started to slowly disintegrate from the beginning until he is freed from the concentration camp. When witnessed two boys abandon their morals by killing their own father for food or abandoning their father to escape being dragged down to their death, literally in some cases. When Eliezer started questioning God and choosing not to partake in his own religion’s holidays that was the peak of him losing his faith. That’s when he started to fall into a mindset of “I have to survive.”
ReplyDeleteIn Conspiracy, I saw that fear did control the men, but the genocide itself was ruled by duty. They thought that termination of all Jews was what needed to be done. Some of them, like Dr. Klopfer, seemed like genocide was only natural while others, like Dr. Kritzinger, thought that genocide would be atrocious. It is all a matter of perspective though.