Night by: Elie Wiesel
Chapter 1 (pgs. 3-22)
- *Setting= 1942, Sighet, Transylvania
(Romania today- Europe)
- Elie Wiesel- 13 year old Jewish boy, parents owned a store, had three sisters, often prayed at the synagogue (religious place for Jews)
- Moishe the Beadle- poor FOREIGN Jewish man who most people did not pay attention to, except for Elie Wiesel (taught him about life and religion)
- Hungarian police came into Sighet and expelled (kicked out) all the foreign Jews and made them cram (get close) into cattle cars (“trains for cows”). NO ONE knew what was happening to them.
- Moishe was one of the foreigners deported from Sighet.
- He returned a few months later WARNING the Jews of Sighet that Jews were being killed (shot and thrown into trenches)… foreshadowing, BUT the Jews were in DENIAL- no way! That could never really happen?!
- Jews were HOPEFUL that the war was getting better.
- 1944- German troops were attacking Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues.
- “In less than three days, German Army vehicles made their appearance on our streets” (Wiesel 9). *foreshadowing
- The Jews of Sighet were told to give the army men their valuables (gold, jewelry, etc..) AND they were NOT to leave the area near their home. Walls were built around Sighet, turning it into a GHETTO (no one could leave).
- Jews could no longer go to the store or to restaurants- *isolated. They were forced to wear a YELLOW STAR to label them as JEWS.
- Soon enough, the Jews were DEPORTED by the GESTAPO to an unknown location- thinking they were going to work in brick factories (take valuables). Trouble?? (*foreshadowing)
- Wiesel and his family were then taken to a small ghetto (placed in homes of other Jews who were forced out of their town and taken to a camp)
- After a few days, the gestapo arrived to take these Jews to ‘a concentration camp’---- “We were on our way” (Wiesel 22).