ARAHIM

//NIGHT// PREREADING ACTIVITY

Imagine yourself in the following situation: You and your family have been driven from your home. Now separated from them, you are suddenly alone. Shoved into a train like cattle, you are surrounded by screaming women, weeping children, silent old men, and ruthless soldiers. There is no food, no water, horror, and madness everywhere. Having arrived at your destination, you smell the stench of burning flesh: babies, children like yourself. Men and boys are hanged daily. There is only soup and perhaps a few morsels of stale bread to eat. You work until exhausted and are beaten for not marching in step. The gold in your teeth is extracted without anesthesia. Frozen and broken bodies surround you. Weekly you must run like a madman to escape being selected to die in the gas chambers or to burn in the crematory. You can’t even wonder if it will end, and you know that God has deserted you. You try to survive each day and lie through each night!

1. Do you believe something like this could ever happen to you? Why or why not? 2. What would be your first reaction to this horrifying experience? 3. What means might you use to deal with what is happening (example: would you lie, cheat, steal)? 4. Do you think it would be better to give up and die oProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 oxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 25Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 try to survive? 5. Inhumanity means being inhumanly cruel and brutal. Do you think the world could ever allow this kind of inhumanity to happen again? 6. What kind of punishment do you feel would be suitable for this kind of inhumanity? 7. Do you think this kind of inhumanity could exist in our day and age?
 * No, because that was in the past. Holocaust survives tell their stories to everyone for people to know hardship they had to go through in order to survive.Now because of the holocaust and the survivors history can't repeat it self.**
 * How my god why are these people that we live with so long betray us like this. Beating us torturing like this what a shame with this country coming too.**
 * I would deal with it by stealing whatever i need to survive. Example food and clothing. Another thing i would to survive in the holocaust is my doing more work. So the Germans won't think I'm worthless and kill me.**
 * Trying to survive, because when you survive you can tell everyone you're story you can make history not repeat.**
 * Yes, because there's alot of cruelty in this World. And there's certain groups who want to get back at certain groups. Maybe religion,ethnic group or a country that happen long time ago.**
 * The people who did this horror to the Jews another people who there in the houlacst should be put to death.**
 * No because we're learning this info. in school and knowing this info. and other horrifying history make us humans learn our mistakes and not letting history repeat itself.**

Reading Guide

The following questions are thought questions that relate to various themes and ideas in the reading. Use these questions to guide your reading and better understanding of the novel. Be prepared to share your responses in class discussion or in a writing assignment. Please answer all questions in COMPLETE SENTENCES.

__Chapter 1, pages 1-22__ 1. Why does Eliezer pray and why does he cry when he prays? 2. Why don’t people believe Moche’s stores?
 * Eliezer prays because his religion requires to pray and he cries he fells he need to pray.**
 * Moche's stories because they didn't believe him so thought pity on him**

3. Site examples of how the Jews gradually lose their freedom.
 * the were put in ghettos,couldn't go to school, couldn't go places at certain times.**

__Chapter 2, pages 23-28__ 4. What does Madam Shachter’s nightmares about a fire foreshadow?
 * people being in flames**

5. Where does the train finally stop?
 * Birkenau, Auschwitz**

__Chapter 3, pages 29-46__ 6. When questioned by the SS officer, why does Elie lie about his occupation and age? 7. Why does Elie disbelieve what his own eyes show him?
 * He lies about his ages because that was age the SS officers gave him and he was affarid he might get in trouble he might get in trouble.He lied his occupation because he heard himself saying it.**
 * He couldn't believe that their burning children & adults and the world doesn't know about it.**

8. Why is Elie now reluctant to pray? __Chapter 4, pages 47-65__ 9. Why is Elie summoned to the dentist? 10. How does Elie react to his father’s beating? 11. Why is the hanging of the “sad eyed angel” said to be one of the most profoundly moving events in the novel? __Chapter 5, pages 66-84__ 12. What is selection?
 * He lost hope in God.**
 * He has a golden crown in his mouth**
 * He was scared in shock and he thought if he helped him he would get beaten too.**
 * The "sad eyed angel" is the most sad events in the movies because they're hanging a kid that has a face of an angles.**
 * A selection is when** **they check if you're healthy enough and if you're fiscally fit. and if they write your number down you'll be killed.**

__Chapter 6, pages 85-97__ 13. Why couldn’t Elie allow himself to die? 14. Why does Juliek play the violin? 15. Compare how the other boys treat their fathers with Eliezer’s treatment of his own father. __Chapter 7-9 pages 98-115__ 16. Why can’t Elizer weep at his father’s death? 17. When he is finally free, Elie wishes to see himself in the mirror. Why can’t he ever forget the look in the eyes of the corpse that gazes back at him?
 * Elie couldn't allow himself to die,because of his father.He felt like he was the backbone to his father.He thought that he was the only person that would make his father go on another day.**
 * Juliek plays the violin for the died. Juliek also played his violin when the other prisoners would march.**
 * The other boys treated their father like dirt. They would beat their fathers without a single tear in their eyes. I think they do this because the boys thought that their fathers where holding them back and for them not to end up in the crematoriums they beat their fathers so the Germans think that their strong and the fathers not. Eliezer however doesn't think that negative about his father.He loves his father and he protects his father and he takes care of him as best as he can while they try to survive in the concentration.**
 * Elizer doesn't weep when his father dies, because he happy when his father dies.He's happy because he won't have to suffer any more.**
 * Elie can never forget the corpse in his eyes because when he looked in the mirror he is so skinny he looked like a dead man walking.**

Literary Analysis Characterization/Author’s Purpose After page: 34

Elie is a Jewish child who is extremely strong in his faith. He often spent nights in the synagogue weeping and praying. He was preparing himself to be initiating into “eternity.” Then came night.

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames, which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments, which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

Answer the following questions in complete sentences.

1. What does “night’ symbolize to Elie? Why do you think he selected it as the title of his memoir? 2. What fires does he speak of that consumed his faith forever? Why do these fires consume his faith? 3. ** Do you find it difficult to believe that a boy so devout in his faith could lose his faith? Why? I believe its possible to loose your faith because if he believed a religion and one day you're in trouble and you pray asking God to help you in a situation and days,and years and your asking god the same thing you start to loose your faith in your religion and god and life too.** 4. Why does he lose his desire to live?
 * "Night" symbolizes to Elie darkness and a nightmare to him since he's been in a concentration camp all he had saw in a year was darkness, fear and nightmares. I think he choose "Night" as the title because his year in that place was dark,hatred,brutally fear and night.**
 * The fire elie is talking about the fire that burned women, children and BABIES!. This fire consumed his faith because he didn't beileve that actulally happened. And he didn't believe that the world didn't know of this and he slowly lost his faith.**
 * Elizer loses desire to live because he rather die than to be put through hell and suffering**

5. Elie spoke these words as an adolescent. Do you think that as an adult his feelings have changed? Why?

6. Why do you suppose Elie wrote this novel?
 * It's important that Elie wrote his autobiography about his years in the concentration camp because For everyone to know his story of a year in a concertration camp and what he and his father had to grow through and every Jew or non-Jew had to grow though the holocaust.**

Literary Analysis: Characterization

Elie explicitly recounts events that describe his relationship with his father during imprisonment in the camps. He also describes events in the relationships of other fathers and sons in the camps.

In your book there are many examples of father-son relationships. Give examples, including the page number of a father son relationship and tell what you think about that relationship, tell why you might or might not have acted in a similar way. This does not have to be done on Elie and his father. There are many other examples of father-son relationships as well. An example has been done for you.

Example: Page 39:

Relationship shown: Elie’s father is struck, but Elie does not move to help him. His father whispers that the blow does not hurt. Although Elie does not move, he feels remorse and hatred toward the gypsy. He is angry and unforgiving.

What I think: Elie is a child and probably fears that if he helps his father, he too will be beaten. His father does not blame him and does not want to see him beaten or do something he might regret; thus, he tells Elie that the blow des not hurt.

I would’ve done: This seems to be a relationship where the father is protective of the son who is young and frightened. I would have acted in the same way if I were the father, thinking that I need to protect my child.

1. Page 43-44

Relationship shown:

What I think:

I would’ve done:

2. Page 49-50

Relationship shown:

What I think:

I would’ve done:

3. Page 55-56

Relationship shown:

What I think:

I would’ve done:

4. Page 90-91

Relationship shown:

What I think:

I would’ve done:

5. Page 101

Relationship shown:

What I think:

I would’ve done:

6. Page 112

Relationship shown:

What I think:

I would’ve done:

__Night__ Irony

Read each passage below. Explain what is //ironic// about the meaning of the passage.

1. “but we had been marching for only a few moments when we saw the barbed wire of another camp. An iron door with this inscription on it: ‘Work is liberty!’ “ (page 40)
 * "Work is liberty!" is so ironic because during the Holocaust the prisoners who worked there work wasn't liberty work was diffilict. When the prisoners worked they had no freedom the were beaten and had little of food. They had no say on the work.**

2. “Some of the prominent members of the community came…to ask him what he thought of the situation. My father did not consider it so grim…’The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don’t die of it…’ ” (page 11)

3. “On we went between the electric wires. At each step, a white placard with a death’s head on it stared us in the face. A caption: ‘Warning, Danger of Death.’ ” (page 40)
 * "Warning Danger of Death" is so ironic because they had signs around certain areas that said "Warning danger of Death" when in reality danger of death was everywhere around them.**

4. I’ve got more faith in Hitler than anyone else. He’s the only one who’s kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.” (page 51)

Inhumanity

//Night// is filled with thoughts and comments that reflect inhumanity of World War II. Explain what each of the following excerpts from the novel mean.

1. “The world? The world is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even these crematories.” (page 33) **This means that the world doesn't know about what is happening in the concentration camps and the world doesn't care what is going on.And since the world doesn't care the Gremans soldiers could do anything to the Jews and non-Jews at the camps and world won't care.**

2. “Work makes you free.” (page 40)
 * "work makes you free" is so inhuman because in the concentration camps work for the prisoners didn't make them free they weren't even free! Work for the prisoners was horrifying and work for them made so die.**

3. “we were not afraid. And yet, if a bomb had fallen on the blocks, it alone would have claimed hundreds of victims on the spot. But we were not longer afraid of death; at any rate, not of that death. Every bomb that exploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life.” (page 60)

4. “I witnessed other hangings. I never saw a is