Introduction

With the encouragement of Francois Mauriac, Elie Wiesel broke his silence on the horror of the Holocaust to produce an 800-page memoir entitled, Un di […]

Eliezer Wiesel

No other individual is so identified with the Holocaust-its memory and its prevention-as Wiesel. He was born in 1928 in Sighet, Romania, to Shlomo (a […]

Plot Summary

A Sighet Night opens with a description of Moshe the Beadle, a poor Jew in Sighet, who is teaching Jewish mysticism to young Eliezer. After […]

Characters

A Alphonse In the concentration camps, the best heads of the block to be under are Jews. When Elie is transferred to the musicians’ block […]

Themes

A Death “Someone began to recite the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I do not know if it has ever happened before, in the […]

Construction

A Narrative The novella is a short piece of fiction that is based on the author’s 800-page memoir of his time in the Nazi death […]

Historical Perspective

A The Eisenhower Years Eisenhower was re-elected in 1956 to continue his leadership of an America that had emerged literally overnight as the most awesome […]

Questions

How does Elie arrive at the conclusion that he is stronger than God? There is passing reference in the novel to an Oberkapos who was […]

Compare and Contrast

1956: The Holocaust, outside of Israel, is not discussed. The nearest approach is the reworking of Anne Frank’s story for the stage. Today: Ignoring the […]