Despite warnings about German intentions towards Jews, Eliezer’s family and the other Jews in the small Transylvanian town of Sighet (now in modern-day Romania) fail to flee the country when they have a chance. As a result, the entire Jewish population is sent to concentration camps. There, in a camp called Auschwitz, Eliezer is separated from his mother and younger sister, but remains with his father. As Eliezer battles to survive against starvation and abuse, he also struggles with the destruction of his faith in God’s justice and fights with the darker sides of himself. Eliezer feels a conflict between supporting his ever weakening father and giving himself the best chance of survival. Over the course of the book, Eliezer and his father are sent from Auschwitz to a new concentration camp called Buna and then, as the Allies (the British and American troops) approach, deeper into Germany, to Buchenwald. A few months before the concentration camps are liberated by Allied soldiers, Eliezer’s father dies. Though Eliezer survives the concentration camps, he leaves behind his own innocence and is haunted by the death and violence he has witnessed.
My Thoughts....
I first read this in my eighth grade English class. I was 13. It changed my life. Before this book my world was sunshine and rainbows. Then I read this and for the first time in my life I was completely self-aware. I felt like a child, like a complete and utter fool. For what were my “problems” compared to those of this narrator? How “hard” was my life compared to what he endured? What millions of people similarly endured. I now understood my own insignificance in the grand scheme of things and suddenly the reality of the world was a crushing weight. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. It was dark. It was ugly and unforgivable. I remember getting really angry when I finished this. Mostly I was angry at the world and at humanity as whole.
My Thoughts....
I first read this in my eighth grade English class. I was 13. It changed my life. Before this book my world was sunshine and rainbows. Then I read this and for the first time in my life I was completely self-aware. I felt like a child, like a complete and utter fool. For what were my “problems” compared to those of this narrator? How “hard” was my life compared to what he endured? What millions of people similarly endured. I now understood my own insignificance in the grand scheme of things and suddenly the reality of the world was a crushing weight. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. It was dark. It was ugly and unforgivable. I remember getting really angry when I finished this. Mostly I was angry at the world and at humanity as whole.