Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Forced Deportation
The first chapter of Night, by Elie Wiesel, tells the story of a communities relocation. This mass exodus of Jews was an integral part of Hitler's "Killing Machine." By removing Jewish families from their place of residence, they no longer "belong" to any land and therefore can be moved anywhere like cattle. In Night, no one in the town of Sighet believes that anything bad will happen to them. Elie's family is presented with numerous opportunities to leave and avoid the deportations, however they believe that everything will turn out well. There are many potential reasons why a family would be so naive; it is possible that because nothing bad had ever happened before, they believed nothing bad could ever happen. Elie writes that his family even "doubted [Hitler's] resolve." (8) We the reader now know this to be a fatal mistake, and every time the family chooses a path which will lead them straight to death, the reader cringes.
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To add on to Andrew's point here, some reasons could include that the Jews think that they can overcome this because nothing has made them leave their homes. The fact that the Jews think the Germans would not come to their ghetto is another example of their ignorance of the situation. Some families could've escaped, but chose to stay because they were comfortable in their own house. This is yet another example of the ignorance of Jews. This ignorance and naiveness lead to many of the Jews' deaths.
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