NIGHT

1
NIGHT

• Section 8-9
• Liberation

2
BUCHENWALD

• The journey to Buchenwald has greatly weakened
  Eliezers father, who seems to have given in to
  death.
• He becomes more of a burden to Eliezer, who
  starts to think that he would be better off if he
  abandoned his father and conserved his own
  strength.
• Eliezer does feel great guilt at this, and
  continues to try to help his father.

3

• As his father suffers from dysentery, Eliezer
  tries to find medical help for him. The doctors
  will not treat him, and some of the prisoners
  steal his food and beat him.
• A SS officer beats him in the head after he cries
  for water, and the next morning, January 29,
  1945, Eliezer wakes up to find that his father
  has been taken to the crematorium.

4

• To his deep shame, he does not cry. Instead, he
  feels relief.

5

• Eliezer remains in Buchenwald, thinking neither
  of liberation nor of his family, but only of
  food.
• On April 11 the American army arrives. Eliezer
  is later struck with food poisoning and spends
  weeks in the hospital. When he finally looks
  into a mirror, after not having seen his image
  since leaving Sighet, he is shocked to see a
  corpse staring back at him.

6

• From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed
  back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared
  into mine, has never left me.
• This line suggests that Eliezers survival was a
  stroke of luck, a coincidence that does not
  involve rejoicing.

7

• It is Eliezers burden to remember the look in
  the corpses eyes, because only by remembering
  and bearing witness can the survivors of the
  Holocaust ensure that nothing like that will ever
  happen again.

8

• Night does not end with optimism and a rosy
  message, but it also does not end as bleakly as
  many believe.
• What the readers are left with are questions for
  mans capacity for evil, but no true answers.
• The memoir does not try to answer these questions.

9

• The moral responsibility for remembering the
  Holocaust and for confronting these questions
  falls directly upon us, the readers.