8A Night Blog 2018

After reading and watching films about the Holocaust, I have learned a lot about genocide and its terrors especially during the Holocaust. After visiting to the Holocaust Museum, I now understand what terrible things humans went through. When I was reading about all of this I started to lose hope in humanity in some ways. It is unthinkable how a human could categorize a group of fellow humans, and say that they are nothing and then almost systematically attempt to annihilate their entire population. I thought that after witnessing all the terrors of the Holocaust that a generation of people could not come back in a return to life in a normal way. I now understand that this event, taught everyone for years to come to not let this happen again. I now understand that humans are greedy and in the case of the Holocaust, the Nazis wanted to believe they were the master race and anyone else should not exist, and that they are superior people. We can bear witness by respectin...

In this section of Night by Elie Wiesel, one theme during his story of the Holocaust sticks out to me. That theme is faith, faith is a big role in the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Elie has a lot of faith, he thinks that everything will be okay and the war will be over quickly. But as the novel goes by, he quickly loses faith in God, life, and the future. When Elie is working at the factory Idek was on furious rant and saw that Elie’s dad was slacking so he decided to start beating him with a metal bar. Elie is furious about this event but he can’t do anything or he will be killed, so all he could do was watch. This really tore Elie’s faith because, he can’t do anything or he will be killed it is like he is in a room and if you take one step you will fall into lava. So he constantly feels like he is trap. Another event that happened that really hurt Elie’s faith was when there were two prisoners who were trying to make weapons that were going to be hanged also got in troub...

After reading night, watching movies, videos and documentaries about the Holocaust, my understanding of the Holocaust is so much clearer. I always knew that it was a huge tragedy and millions of people died, but I did not know many details that I know now. I think going to the Holocaust museum was a great way of showing what all really happened, even though the experience was hard. Something that really stood out to me at the Holocaust museum was the room full of shoes of people who were killed. This stood out to me because being so close to something that was taken away from people who were about to be tortured and killed left me speechless. Reading Night  gave me a good understanding of what life was like for a Jew who was a victim of the Holocaust and it felt like Elie Wiesel took me along his experience with him. Watching the documentary of Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein, was one of my favorite parts about learning about the Holocaus...

Before we learned about the holocaust all I knew was "Hitler doing bad stuff". I thought this unit was very powerful. Even though the holocaust was the saddest thing I have learned in school, I am glad I learned about it so we will not make this happen again. It was so overwhelming watching and learning about it. This moved me and made me think... "Will something like this happen again?" which is a very scary thought. Night made me think more than I usually do. Thousands of peoples lives were lost. I have never really thought about that until now. Even though we are kids we still need to get exposed to this. I thought life is beautiful really related to night. The little boy reminded me of Elie and the sacrifice that both the dad's made was very moving.

After spending the last few weeks studying and talking about the Holocaust it has brought so much to my attention and changed my perspective on most of the world. We read examples of literature which presented people’s first hand experiences, watched multiple films on the subject, and even interpreted photographs from the camps and from other places during the time period. After looking at all of this, talking about it, and analyzing these documents I have experienced so many emotions but the one that resonated the most was that feeling of disgust. How could another person possibly find a reason to do this to another person? What gives them reason to do this? Multiple times I thought about this while watching the Italian film Life Is Beautiful. When the men were carrying anvils to melt down and Guido is so overcome by pain and fatigue that he is tempted to drop the anvil but only stops himself when his inmate told him dropping the anvil would result in death. The t...

Learning about the Holocaust has had a great impact on me. Previously I had little knowledge of its existence, now I know of its horrific impact on our past and present. It's difficult to comprehend the suffering these people went through. Even though it's devastating to process we have to understand so that we don't make the same mistakes. Nadia Murad’s article filled me with empathy as well as anger. Our world is still infected with thriving hatred, people are truly suffering. As citizens of a free country, we must take action, support survivors and give them justice. We need to stop squabbling over the small things and fight for human rights.

his study has gave me a whole new view on the Holocaust. I was enlightened to what the Holocaust entailed, including the torture, not just physically, but emotionally, like when a loved one was lost. In the video, Life is Beautiful , I realized how hard it must have been to be separated from your family during the war, or if you were lucky enough to be in the same camp, to make sure that person, or people were still alive, and to protect them. On the other hand, in Night, even though Elie tries to look out for his father, by the end, it’s every man for himself. In order to survive, it becomes extremely hard to watch out for other people, even if they are your closest loved one. These texts have given me a new realization of the Holocaust. It is hard to believe it happened in the twentieth century, not in medieval times, as Elie Wiesel said in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. The 1940s, were relatively not that long ago. It is also heartbreaking to think that the Americans did n...

Studying the Holocaust has changed my view on the world forever. Before studying this horrific time in history, I viewed the Holocaust as something that happened long ago, or something that was so inhumane that I almost thought of it as fiction. As Elie Wiesel stated in his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, “This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed?” Seeing the horrors in detail at the Holocaust Museum and learning about the Holocaust in class has taught me that we must help others that are in situations similar to the Holocaust, because we cannot let history repeat itself. Before studying this unit, I had no idea that so many people were suffering worldwide and so many genocides have occurred/are occurring even today. What baffles me the most is that we have done nothing to help these people. We have barely even given them a voice to use, let alone attempted to free them from their tormentors. We are the Free Nation, yet we sit...

This experience of the Holocaust affect me on an emotional level. Before this experience I did not know much about the Holocaust I just had heard of horrible man named Adolf Hitler and the genocide he had created. After reading the book Night and after the documentaries and films that we watched I've been slapped by reality. I've been dwelling a lot on my own as well, about how people could have so much hatred on the people who are their neighbors. Just ordinary people that have so much hatred. I'm just so confused how people could just back stab their neighbors as soon as a new political party rose. Ordinary people turning into monsters you don't see that everyday. I've taken away so many things from this unit. I think the thing that just draws me the most from in this unit is to never forget. So many innocent people died just because of what they practiced and what they look like. So the least I can do is memorialize them by never forgetting what happened to them....

As I reflect on our studies on the Holocaust, my beginning knowledge on it and my knowledge at the end is unfathomable. My view on the world and history has changed immensely, as I do perceive people more on how they act and how they are, instead of how Hitler saw the Jews, just for being different from him because of their religion. I recall in the Life is Beautiful how the wife, Dora, chose to go to the concentration camp with her family, although she was not forced to because she was not Jewish. The Germans were splitting up families for no reason, and although the film was fiction, it was very brave of Dora to join her family to go to the concentration camp. The film also brought me to understand on how hard it must’ve been to keep spirits high, and to manipulate one's child, as Guido did with his son, Joshua, and make them believe that everything would be alright. In the film, Guido had his son believe that for them to get out of the concentration camp, they had to earn 1,000 ...

The Holocaust. It is a just a word, but the story behind those three syllables is far greater and has irrevocably changed human history. Before studying this topic, the extent of my knowledge on the Holocaust amounted to “When Hitler and the Nazis tried to kill all the Jews during World War Two”, which is in some ways accurate, in others, entirely wrong. I have learned that the Holocaust was so much more than Hitler and the Nazis, more than Germany, more than the war. It was the systematic destruction of innocent people by other people. A civilian genocide enacted and carried out by civilians. Jewish men, women, and children were ostracized, targeted, captured, and eventually, mass murdered by their own countrymen. And what’s worse, the world turned a blind eye. But no longer. Throughout my studies of the Holocaust and its effects, my eyes have been opened to the horrors that Jews, Romas, people of color, homosexuals, people with disabilities, and more faced during the 12 long ye...

Reading    Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night, and viewing other Holocaust sources, has changed my views on the world. Knowing that such a tragic event like this could occur is horrifying, especially because it was to a certain group of people. Knowing what happened to the Jewish people in the Holocaust is a burden. But understanding is it is harder. Throughout many Jew's lives and stories told, faith is a common similarity. In Night , Elie Wiesel tells us how he loses and gains faith many times. At one point he even said there were, "flames that burned my faith," proving that he lost and had no faith. Towards the end of the memoir, Elie finally is liberated, survives the war, and wins a Nobel Peace Prize. Winning a Nobel Peace Prize just shows how Elie held on to his faith and survived.  Another Holocaust piece, the movie Life is Beautiful , portrays a young boy and his father who go to a concentration camp and try to make the best of it. Throughout the movie, the young b...

Elie’s book, Night, has changed the way I look at life. I will forever be grateful to have a roof over my head, a good meal to eat every day, and that I am free. It troubles me that these innocent people had to deal with such a horrible thing. During this study, I have learned so much about the Holocaust and how horrible it was. Imagine being in Elies shoes. Hard right? It must’ve been even harder living that lifestyle for years. He and so many others lost faith and hope in themselves and living. In the movie, Life is Beautiful, there is mentioned that the children and elderly are “given the chance” to take showers. These so-called “showers” were the gas chambers. These innocent people are lead to death just for being Jewish. It's inhumane how one has pleasure in doing such a thing. It disgusts me. Some parts of history are very important, like the Holocaust for instance. It is good for we students to know and understand this horrible event that occurred because it is a big part of...

While studying the Holocaust, I learned so much. Before this unit, I only knew the basics. I knew about Hitler and the camps, but that was pretty much it. After learning so much, my thoughts on humanity has completely changed. It’s so hard to think about the fact that this kind of stuff is happening right now. During Elie Weisel’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, one of the things he was focusing on was “never again”. That is what I was thinking too. No one should ever have to go through any of that. The one thing I could take from this unit is that you should never give up for the world. In the memoir Night by Elie Weisel, Elie was starting to give up on living while staying in the concentration camps. The only person who ‘kept him alive’ was his dad. Elie actually told himself that if his dad died when he died too. The way we can bear witness to all of this is to make sure as many people can hear these stories as possible. Whether it is from a survivor themselves or a story passed dow...

Reading Night and going to the Holocaust museum changed my perspective of how extreme it all was. I knew that the Germans were cruel to the Jews, and I knew that Jews were put into concentration camps, but I didn't know much about the conditions inside the camps, and I didn't know that families were separated and that Jews had numbers tattooed on their arms. Just by reading Night I learned a lot about the Holocaust and what it was like to be in a concentration camp. When we went to the museum, there was one part where you could look down into a well and it was a slideshow showing the cruel experiments Germans used Jews for. It was also very interesting to hear survivors stories because hearing the story from a person, face to face, in some ways changes how I interpret what I hear. After learning more about what happened during the Holocaust and thinking about why and how it happened I will see our history in a different way. I know that in our history we've made plen...

As a Jew, I have known about the Holocaust my entire life from Hebrew school, from books, from my parents, but I was too young to understand it. To understand how much religion really means. To understand how much life really means. In so many ways, Elie’s memoir brought the Holocaust to life, made it real, and not just a terrifying nightmare. Now I truly know what so many Jews in Europe went through during WWII. Now I truly understand how lucky Elie and my grandparents were to have survived.  I keep thinking about how Guido gave his life for his son in  a beautiful life , how courageous he truly was, and if I was in his shoes, would I do the same? He is one of the many who kept a hold on to faith in the Holocaust, but faith in what exactly? Faith in his son? Faith in a better life?  So many times in his memoir, Elie mentioned “Night”: the “kingdom of the night” or  “an endless night.” The entire book was about him surviving the Holocaust, losing his faith...

Learning about the Holocaust has not changed my belief or view on history. Learning about the Holocaust has reinforces my belief that historically people have had very flawed and unequal ideas and that have led to very dark events in history. This is a fact we must accept and for the sake of those who survived, and those who didn’t we must ‘fix’ these problems all humanity faces, in the present, while we still can. Most importantly though we must not try to rewrite and/or fix the past. The present is the best time to, atleast begin to, solidify the facts, that all men are created equal and there is no more genetic difference between people from different ‘races’ than people from the same, and prevent unobstructed uprisings like Hitler’s. The only change I faced was how much the Jews denied before they played into Hitler’s hand. This change was initiated when Mrs. Zanger pointed out that the Jews were in denial that the Nazis were doing what they did, and the sparks lit when, readi...

I feel like I have a new understanding of the holocaust. I used to only know how bad it was on paper and how so many people died, but videos and images gave me a totally new perspective on the holocaust. For example the movie,  Life Is Beautiful, It really showed me the depression of losing family and friends, Starvation, and people losing hope. I feel like this movie was a sadder version of night because they both get you attached to the characters but in the movie it has images not just words. It is a shame that we can't prevent the holocaust from happening but know one can forget about it so a gennoacide doesn't happen again. And when a gennoacide is happening, we can't just be quiet, we need to help the suffering.

Learning about genocides these past few weeks has made a huge impact on me. I have a whole other perspective on the world because I never realized how someone could be so evil. I have always been a person to find the light in everyone and everything. It was hard for me to learn about the Holocaust because there was no good in anybody who took part in it by hurting other people and it was emotionally very harsh reading Night and learning about Elie Wiesel's horrible experience, and going to the Holocaust museum and seeing visuals. My perspective on humanity has changed. I always knew bad things happened but I never knew how extreme it could get especially learning that there were camps just for killing and people being gassed or burnt to death when they had done nothing wrong.I have taken away a lot from this unit learning about the Holocaust. The hardest part for me to understand is how somebody could be so horrible and how other countries didn't believe what was happening dur...

Hell does not last forever By: Dana Michaels Whips cracking around me Silence enveloping words With hope in our eyes Hell does not last forever Tattooed numbers A-7713 The Buna SS officers The crate With hope in our eyes Hell does not last forever Fear greater than hunger Breathing air filled with fire and smoke With hope in our eyes Hell does not last forever The pipel boy Soup tasting of corpses Long nights of tourching work Watching young children with lives ahead of them Perish Does Hell last forever

Run Faster and Faster No strength left in our bodies Keep going We must fight for our lives If we slow down Our fight is over Run From dusk till dawn Hoping That we will not collapse And what would happen if we do? Death. People going down one by one Praying That they will not be the next one to go

Vulnerable Faith Thousands of lips repeated the benediction, bent over like trees in a storm. Where is merciful God? We felt the abyss opening beneath us My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, as he felt the first chinks in his faith, he lost all incentive to fight. and opened the door to death. God the accused. You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, I no longer accepted god’s silence God is no longer with us.

Poem: In the beginning there was faith—which is childish; trust—which is vain; and illusion—which is dangerous, Fire! The Fire! Auschwitz… nobody had ever heard that name. The death of God in the soul of a child who suddenly faces absolute evil, Flames that consumed faith, From dreams to ashes, Death of God and soul, Deprivation of the desire to live. Muster your strength, And keep your faith. What are you my God, Why do you go on troubling these poor people's wounded minds, their ailing bodies? I have faith in the Jewish people, In Israel, Let it be given a chance, And those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

The Night Always expected The paralyzing silence Voices silencing and breaking But the Night Such a blessing Shielding the innocents from monsters Monsters that perhaps were once human The monsters hated the night Going back from were they came from under the cover of Night In the morning hell awakened Forced to live in this living hell The devil's themselves awakened No love No family Every man for himself Back to the Night All hope was in the Night The monsters slept in the Night Everyone slept Either for the Night or forever Everyone slept In the perfect Night

A Jewish Family That is what we are No different from others Not better or worse Not more generous or cheaper Equal Not stronger or weaker Not smarter or dumber We are equal The same as everybody else Some people do not know history, So they are doomed to repeat it But in reality We are equal And that’s that

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.  It was like a page torn from a book  Like a dream in the first hours of dawn We felt the abyss opening beneath us We were all condemned to the same fate- still unknown  Finally, our illusions devoured us Consumed us I was face to face with the angel of death I don’t know how I survived Never shall I forget that smoke. Fire! I see a fire! I see a fire! We saw the flames rising from a tall chimney against a black sky Fire! I see a fire!  Jews look! Look at the fire! Look at the flames! Hunger-Thirst-Fear-Selection-Fire-Chimney And then, there was nothing, only the darkness of night Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Wide, dreamy eyes  Divine suffering The children and their fear  He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves ...