Night- Chapter 6

In Chapter 6 of Night, Elie Wiesel describes situations that cause prisoners to resort to extreme measures of self-preservation. When humans are placed in life or death situations, their behavior often deteriorates to basic, animalistic levels....

Describe in your own words why this is true....with Night as a reference or using another story/real life event that illustrates this concept.

Never Shall I Forget

We first read Elie's words in Chapter 3 which illustrated how that first night in Auschwitz affected him....to the point that he would "never forget"...

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.

I asked you to begin thinking about an event in your life that has shaped you...something that you "never shall forget"....Now is the time to begin putting th words on paper.... what will you never forget?

Here is something from me:

Never shall I forget that highway that led me back “home”,
the highway I drove every 4 weeks for six months, the highway
which turned my childhood memories into my refuge, my salvation.
Never shall I forget each time I left him, never knowing if it would be my last.

Never shall I forget the way he struggled to recognize me each time I walked through his door
and how he repeated things over and over as I fought to hide my tears.
Never shall I forget those days that he was mean and hateful, a completely different person inhabiting an old familiar body.

Never shall I forget the look on her face as she pleaded with him to cooperate; pleaded with him to remember her.

Never shall I forget those moments which we share those last six months, moments I would not trade for anything in the world; yet moments that constantly reminded me of what I was losing.

And never shall I forget the day we turned the machines off and he left us for good although Alzheimer’s had stolen him away from us long before.
Never shall I forget.

Night- Chapter 5

Think about the "selection" process that was described in Chapter 5 and how this process reflects a man-made version of Darwin's evolutionary principle of the survival of the fittest.

In your own words how does the selection process (as described in chapter 5) reinforce dehumanization, one of the themes of Night?

Refugees ..who are they?

As you think about the poem you read for today (Auden's "Refugee Blues") and you listen to the following song by Tom Petty, think about your own personal definition of what a refugee is. What image does this word create in your mind? Is it a good image? A bad image? Do you have any prejudices about refugees? Why?


We got somethin', we both know it, we don't talk too much about it
Ain't no real big secret, all the same, somehow we get around it
Listen, it don't really matter to me baby
You believe what you want to believe, you see

You don't have to live like a refugee
(Don't have to live like a refugee)

Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have kicked you around some
Tell me why you will lay there, revel in your abandon
Honey, it don't make no difference to me baby
Everybody has to fight to be free, you see

(Chorus)
You don't have to live like a refugee
(Don't have to live like a refugee)
No baby you don't have to live like a refugee
(Dont have to live like a refugee)

Baby we ain't the first
I'm sure a lot of other lovers been burned
Right now it seems real to you, but it's
One of those things you got to feel to be true

Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have kicked you around some
Who knows maybe you were kidnapped tied up,
Taken away and held for ransom
Honey, it don't really matter to me baby
Everybody has to fight to be free, you see

Refugee Blues by WH Auden

Before you read the poem, it is important to understand the context in which it was written. Auden actually wrote the poem prior to the onset of WWII, as more and more Jews began to flee from Europe. However, the more Jews that fled, the more restrictive the receiving countries became.

Chaim Weizmann, 12 years before he became the first president of the state of Israel, said (Dec, 1936), "There are now two sorts of countries in the world--those that want to expel the Jews and those that don't want to admit them." It was within this type of environment that Auden penned the following words:


Refugee Blues

Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.


Your task is to analyse the poem in preparation for class tomorrow.
Come prepared to give your own interpretation of its message and why it spoke to you the way that it did.

Night- Chapter 4

Reread the 4th paragraph on page 52.... the scene where Elie's father is being beaten while Elie stands there, doing nothing.

Now listen to this song by Lifehouse.
What connections can you make between the two?

The "color" of Chapter 3

Colors are sometimes associated wtih mood. Your journal today should focus on the "colors" of Chapter 3 based on the mood from the beginning of the chapter to the end....as the mood changes, how do the colors change?
What colors do you associate with Elie's experiences and why?

anti-Semitism ...real world examples.

Please use the questions your group received to guide your
discussions about each of the three images as you attempt
to deconstruct anti-Semitism.

IMAGE 1- The cover of a children's book from 1936 called "Trau keinem Fuchs auf gruener Heid und keinem Jud bein seinem Eid" (translation: Trust No Fox in the Green Meadow and No Jew on his Oath), published by Der Stuermer-Verlag.

IMAGE 2- Political cartoon from 1938 by Seppla (Josef Plank)

IMAGE 3- Contemporary political cartoon from 2005; is very similiar to the types of images found on contemporary white supremacist hate group websites.

Hope

Hope and False Hope play a large role in Chapter 3 of Night.
What does hope do for a person?
What does false hope do?
Are they both necessary?
Is one better than the other in the short term / long term?

Night, Chapter 3

None of us has experienced something like a Holocaust, but we have all experienced things that have shaped our lives and made us into the person who we are today. Many of those things, like Elie Wiesel's time in Auschwitz, are tragic and are things we WANT to forget...yet we cannot.

In Chapter 3 he writes about how those first sights at Auschwitz affected him...

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.

Your task is to think about something in your life that changed you... something that left a mark on you that you "never shall forget"... it may not be tragic or destructive like the story of Elie, but we all have things that have changed us; things we will never forget.

Begin working on your own "Never shall I forget" poem. The due date has not been determined...for now, just think. Just remember.