Chapter 2

Summary

The Jews are packed into cattle cars, there is almost no air to breathe, the heat is unbearable, there is no room to sit, and everyone is hungry and thirsty. Some  begin to 'show 'affection' openly on the train as though they were alone, and others pretend not to notice. After days of travel in these inhuman conditions, the train arrives at the Czechoslovakian border, and the Jews realize that they are not simply being relocated.  Madame Schächter, a middle-aged woman who is on the train with her ten-year- old son, soon cracks under the oppressive treatment to which the Jews are subjected. On the third night, she begins to scream that she sees a fire in the darkness outside the car.

 

The train eventually stops, they have reached Auschwitz. This name means nothing to them, and they bribe some locals to get news.  With nightfall, Madame Schächter again wakes everyone with her screams, and again she is beaten into silence. The train moves slowly and at midnight passes into an area enclosed by barbed wire. Through the windows, everybody sees the chimneys of vast furnaces. There is an undefined, odor in the air—what they soon discover is  the smell of burning human flesh. This concentration camp is Birkenau, the processing center for arrivals at Auschwitz.

 

Quote:  

"Jews, look! Loook at the fire! Look at the flames!"-pg 28

Reaction:

This isn't the first mention from Madame Schächter of fire, no, this is the only time it makes sense. Before they were in the middle of no where and no fires in sight. BUt in the Cattle car the the Jews faced a kind of fire we have no idea of, the extreme heat of 80 bodies shoved in a space meant for nearly half that, and with a very minimum amount of water the Jews must have felt like they were burning. However this madness of Madame Schächter seems to be a bad omen foreshadowing the cremotoria.

Link ABOUT RAILCARS OF THE HOLOCAUST, from the HOlocaust Documentation and EDucation Center

Chapter 1 page 3-22

In 1941, Eliezer, is a twelve-year-old boy living in the Sighet, Transylvania. Needing guide his to discuss religious mysticism, he turns to Moshe the Beadle, a very poor and pious homeless-man who everyone seems to like. One day, without warning, Hungarian police arrest Moshe along with other foreigners and take them away aboard cattle cars.

 After several months, having escaped his captors, Moshe returns and tells how the deportation trains were handed over to the  German secret police at the Polish border. There the Jews were forced to dig mass

 graves for themselves and were killed by the Gestapo. The town thinks he is crazy refuses to believe his story. The town keeps on hearing news of the Nazi army, they didn't think the Germans stood a chance. News from Budapest warns that fascism is on the rise. Although a villager returns from the capital with news of anti-Semitism, optimism continues to prevail. But suddenly the army is rolling through town, and still everything seems okay to the people of Sighet. Then series of increasingly oppressive measures are forced on the Jews—the community leaders are arrested, Jewish valuables are confiscated, and all Jews are forced to wear yellow stars. Eventually, the Jews are confined to small ghettos, crowded together into narrow streets behind barbed-wire fences to await departure.

 By 4 A.M., families are preparing food for the journey. At 8 A.M., Hungarian police order Jews outside police club anyone moving to slowly. Within two hours, all Jews stand in the streets. By 1 P.M., the first convoys begin their march out of Sighet. On Thursday, the Wiesels anticipate deportation. To their relief, they are forced to move into the small ghetto. Elie leads the way; his father weeps. The small ghetto is littered with possessions that the first deportees abandoned in turmoil. The Wiesels move into Elie's uncle's rooms for four nights. At dawn on Saturday, after a wretched Friday night packed in the synagogue with the remaining Jews, the Wiesels join the last deportees to board railway cattle cars.

This is the trailer of "Jacob the Liar," with Robin WIlliams this is a brief example of some of the conditions Jews had to face in some Ghettos.

Quote:

"That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death." -page 19

Reaction:

This quote makes us think: How can we relate to the people of this era? this quote tells us how, by the repulsion and anger at the people who committed such terrible acts. Wiesel also shows us how, in this case, the Hungarian police were their first attackers, their first enemies, their first foreshadowing of events to come.

Visit:HOLOCAUST/TIMELINE To learn more about the ghettos

Preface vii-xv (Elie Wiesel) Foreword xvii-xxi (Francois Mauriac)

Preface

Summary:

Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, tells us readers about his decisions when he  began writing and before Publishing "Night".

He questioned himself, asking, "Why did I write it?" , "Was it to leave behind a legacy of words, of memories, to help prevent history from repeating itself?" 

Wiesel speaks of his foresight, of how he knew this moment would be judged in the future and he had to remember and bear witness. The power in this short preface, is amazing, Wiesels experience and eloquence in his writing brings images of the slaughter of the many innocents during the Holocaust. In his original rough draft he even had portions, which seemed excess and made the novel to long. His experiences, I think,  would break down any person in todays society, so Elie Wiesels account is invaluable, because he had the strength to hold on and report to the world. 

Quote:

"The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future."

Reaction:

Elie Wiesel again speaks about "bearing witness., and "testifying," his powerful belief in the future and dedication to the future generation was an obvious inspiration to him through his life and during his experiences of Auschwitz and the Holocaust. 

This video tells the story of another Witness to the horrors of Auschwitz, she was one of the first to enter into its horrible campus.

Forward

Summary:

Mauriac never directly experienced the terror of the Holocaust, like us he was told secondhand. He tells us his wife witnessed them. He tells about his interview with a young Jewish man and how at the time Europe knew nothing of the Nazi extermination methods. And how the families being torn apart was hardly comprehendible to outsiders. He speaks of the dying children being fed to the gas-chambers, and crematoria. "I have thought of these children so many times!" Mauriac cites "The Diary of Anne Frank" and   says readers of "Night" will have as numerous readers, and they will discover , how miraculously the child told their tale.

Quote: 

"Let us try to imagine what goes on his ["the child"] mind as his eyes watch rings of black smoke unfurl in the sky, smoke that emanates from the furnaces into which his sister and his mother had been thrown..."

Reaction:

The hardest thing I find most difficult to imagine about the Holocaust is: how did the children manage to hold on? Obviously a great number didn't, but still the survivors of today were little more then 16 when entering the ghettos and camps where their childhood was stripped from them. Those who survive are invaluable to the present generation, they are a vast fountain of knowledge about the evils and dark side of humanity. 

Link to Museum of Tolerance, where many children of the Holocaust are remembered