Relationship Between a Passage in Night and an Artifact

Passage from Night:

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as

long as God Himself.
Never” (Weisel 34).

This passage in the book Night was written by Elie Wiesel in which he talks about the horrors he went through on his first few days in the concentration camp. This is very emotional because it shows how much Elie has changed from being a very religious person to saying that his God was murdered. He starts to question if god really does exist and why god has not helped them. He had seen many innocent lives get killed which included children. These young infants that had no knowledge of life or experienced it were killed because they were no help to the Nazis. Wiesel had seen these children get thrown into the gas chambers and and witnessed their death. In this passage there is a loss of faith which is reflected throughout the whole book and throughout the Holocaust itself. While reading this passage I could picture the scene in my mind. Its almost like Elie is sat in the middle of a dark room staring at something and everyone listening to him in complete silence. There is a use of personification when he says that the moments murdered his God. The events that took place during the Holocaust caused many people to lose faith in their God. The passage is filled with imagery because he talks about the children’s bodies and how that transformed into smoke under a silent sky. It is also very interesting at how the passage ends with the words never. The never at the end of the excerpt makes it seemed like the whole passage can be summed up into that one word.

Artifact: Poetry
Tale of a Sprinter, in the Winter of 1938 by Sudeep Pagedar

THE PAST -
I am an athlete from Berlin,
my feet are fast and swift.
I can run faster than anyone!
Truly, this is the Lord's gift!

Any race I participate in,

I always come in first,
for I tell myself, "I HAVE to win";
it is like a great thirst.

Even if someone, somehow passes me,
I put on an extra burst of speed
and run past him, leaving him behind;thus, I take the lead.

I once thought, "If I keep running this way,
I might be in the Olympics, some day..."

THE PRESENT -
But now the year is nineteen-thirty-eight
And for my dreams, it's just too late.

My running days are all gone,
I'm not going to see tomorrow's dawn.

Yes, it is true
that I can run very fast;
But it is also true
that I am a Jew...

There's no running, from the Holocaust.

This poem is written by Sudeep Pagedar in which he talks about his life before the Holocaust and then he talks about his present day life. Sudeep explains that he has a strong passion for running. He talks about how he wins his races by always beating the guy who passes him and says that his dream is to one day compete in the Olympics. When the poem fast forwards to the present day, he says that it is too late to go after his dream. He gives up on his running and he is scared. Sudeep is very scared and knows that he is going to die because he says that he will not see tomorrow’s dawn. This shows that once the Holocaust started any dream that anyone had was destroyed immediately. Loss of faith is seen throughout the poem. When he talks about achieving his dreams being too late, and that he is not going to see tomorrow’s dawn he is losing hope in life. In the poem, the writer sums up his piece by stating the fact that the Holocaust cannot be ignored and once you were in it, there was no getting out. 

 

In both scenarios the theme in loss of faith is present. Elie is losing faith because throughout all of their struggles God was never there to help them and save them. He starts to ask himself the question of does God really exist. But even though he starts to lose faith in God he still has respect which can be seen by the fact that he chooses to capitalize the G in God. In Sudeep's case, he loses faith in his dream because he knows that once your pulled into the mess of the Holocaust there is no getting out. He has excepted the fact that he is going to die and there is nothing he could do. If he fought for his life and spoke up he was just going to die earlier. Also in both pieces there is idea of silence present because both of the characters are talkih about how there life changed after the Holocaust.