Essay about the memoir Night

 This is my essay I wrote about the memoir we read Night.

The Holocaust. 1933, the year it all started. An event that changed the world. 10 million people lost their lives from something that never should have happened. My class has been learning about the Holocaust. We have been reading a memoir called Night, a non-fiction memoir written by Elie Wiesel. It is based on Elie Wiesel who is a survior of the holocaust and his experience through it. Some of the techniques Wiesel uses in the book are metaphors, short sentences, single sentences and also dialogue. Some of the techniques are very upsetting and the impact on me made me feel worried, angry and disgusted.

An event that had an impact on me was on the first night at the camp when Elie was watching living people and children getting thrown into a fire. He wrote, "A truck drew close and unloaded its hold, small children. Babies!" The technique he used was a short sentence and single word sentence. The two word phrase "small children '' followed by a single word sentence "babies" emphasises the young age of the victims. The use of the exclamation mark after "Babies!" shows how shocked he is to see how young they are. These techniques made me respond emotionally: I was disgusted because they were doing this to innocent young children and babies that still need to and deserve to grow up and experience life. I was also very sad as a lot of humans lost their lives.

Another one of the events in the Holocaust that really impacted me was when so many people were squished together in a small railway carriage traveling to one of the camps with one bucket for the toilet, a little air hole, no water and no food. They were travelling for days and hours too. A woman named Mrs Schachter spoke in the carriage. My technique was from what she had said, "Look! Look at this fire! This terrible Fire! Have mercy on me!" This technique is dialogue. They have an impact because she is shouting, and adding stress to the other passengers because she could have been having a vision. It made me feel disgusted because they were treated like animals. I was also worried as Mrs Schachter could have predicted something, which she actually did.

There have been so many events in this memoir that have impacted me but one more that had the most impact on me was when at the end they were doing the death march, which was running and not being able to stop otherwise they would get shot or trampled. It was freezing temperatures and they had to be constantly running for over 45kms. The technique that I chose for this one was the metaphor, "Faster you tramps, you flea-ridden dogs." The SS officer is calling the prisoners dogs, comparing them to animals. I felt angry and disgusted, no one should ever be called an animal. I think the SS Officer is also taking advantage of them, thinking he can just do that, when people should never get treated that way.

This memoir that we have read has shown me a true understanding of what the Jews had been through and how every survivor has a different story. I have learnt to not take life for granted. All the techniques that were used gave me a better understanding of the events and situations that went on in the Holocaust. All the quotes together made me feel very angry and disgusted. I can't imagine what the prisoners had to go through. This is a really important event in history. It should never be forgotten about, as so many people lost their lives from it. As a world we should learn from our mistakes and make sure nothing ever like that will happen again.