Night - Elie Wiesel timeline | Timetoast Timelines

"Suddenly the Blockälteste remembered that we had forgotten to clean the block. He commanded four prisoners to mop the floor...One hour before leaving camp! Why? For whom? 'For the liberating army,' he told us. 'Let them know that here lived men and not pigs.'" (Page 84) This quote stuck out to me since it showed that they sometimes still considered them 'men' when the way Jews were treated was beyond inhumane.

"Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?" (Page 4) Elie compares his faith as being as essential as living and breathing.

"By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple." (Page 3) Describing his daily life and devotion to religion prior to the arrival of German forces in Hungary.

"'Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!' the Hungarian police were screaming. That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors, They were the first faces of hell and death." (Page 19) Elie traces his hatred back to this moment when he recalls the treatment they faced upon being deported -- and possibly the only link he has to Hungary today.

"'Here, take this knife,' he said. 'I won't need it anymore. You may find it useful. Also take this spoon. Don't sell it. Quickly! Go ahead, take what I'm giving you!' My inheritance ..." (Page 75) His father instructs Elie to not sell the trinkets, possibly because those are things that people wouldn't have used in the camp (they mostly ate bread). Eliezer doesn't accept the 'inheritance' as he feels that it would be giving his father permission to die.

"I looked at my house in which I had spent years seeking my God, fasting to hasten the coming of the Messiah, imagining what my life would be like later. Yet I felt little sadness. My mind was empty." (Page 19) Elie begins to question his earlier faithfulness to Judaism.

"Someone began to recite Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I don't know whether, during the history of the Jewish people, men have ever before recited Kaddish for themselves." (Page 33) The quote shows how for some, religion was something that they turned to when they were faced with great difficulties in life.

"For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?" (Page 33) Even if some were being brought closer by religion, Elie was voicing his disregard for God when he had felt as if God had turned a blind eye to the Jew's suffering.

"I too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been consumed by the flames. All that was left was a shape that resembled me. My soul had been invaded - and devoured - by a black flame." (Page 37) Elie describing that his experience in the concentration camp had turned his faith away from God and consumed by unfaithfulness.

"I did not fast. First of all, to please my father who had forbidden me to do so. And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against him." (Page 69) He's especially angry as he felt that God had abandoned not only Elie but his entire peoples. This is during Yom Kippur, a religious day.

"Akiba Drumer has left us, a victim of the selection. Lately, he had been wandering among us, his eyes glazed, telling everyone how weak he was..." (Page 76) It's to be noted that Elie refers to Akiba Drumer as if he had already passed away. But he's instead referring to his spirit that had 'left' him, possibly as a nod to his faith -- which had been one of his defining characteristics earlier in the novel -- being destroyed during this time.

"We received more blows than food. The work was crushing. And three days after [Akiba Drumer] left, we forgot to say Kaddish." (Page 77) The quote shows how commonplace the execution of people in the concentration camps were -- it also demonstrates the concept that it was every man for himself, and people channeled their focus on sustaining themselves.

"He said wearily: 'I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.'" (Page 81) Although the sentiments Hitler made towards Jews were deplorable and he was actively trying to exterminate them, he was often the one source of truth at the time. Ever so often prisoners would be told that the Red Army was nearing, but they had never come to save them. Hitler alone was keeping his truth, no matter it be good or bad.

"The dead remained in the yard, under the snow without even a marker, like fallen guards. No one recited Kaddish over them. Sons abandoned the remains of their fathers without a tear." (Page 92) This shows that although extermination was the main goal of the concentration camps, through doing so, they also alienated everyone and broke the one 'link' all the prisoners had - - their Jewish faith.

"If only I didn't find [my father]! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of myself ... Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever." (Page 106) Despite having previously thought that the only reason either of them was alive was due to the other, he has begun to start identifying with the view that Rabbi Eliahu's son had. But he also recognizes that it is his duty to be there for his father.

"Two hours later, the loudspeakers transmitted an order from the camp Kommandant: all Jews were to gather in the Appelplatz. This was the end! Hitler was about to keep his promise." (Page 114) Eliezer knew that as the Red Army approached the camps, there was a higher chance of rapid extermination. As he was in the children's camp, he was going to do anything to try and limit the chances of him being executed so close to the end. Hitler's word was something that Jews could see were truthful.

"Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. That's all we thought about. No thought of revenge, or of parents. Only of bread." (Page 115) It shows how much staying at the concentration camps contributed to the internal dehumanization many Jews were forced through. They had returned to primal instincts of trying to find sustenance -- something that they were denied throughout their time at the cam -- demonstrating the horrible conditions at the camp.

"On my father's cot there lay another sick person. They must have taken him away before daybreak and taken him to the crematorium. Perhaps he was still breathing...He had called out to me and I had not answered...I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep." (Page 112) Again, the quote shows how commonplace and quiet death could be even in a place of so much suffering. It also shows in a morbid way how someone's death in the camp could be a weight lifted off of another's shoulders.