In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, the author tries to avoid negative attention to ensure his survival. At Auschwitz, Elie does nothing during a scene in which his father is beaten for asking where the toilets are. Elie’s fear of further beatings keeps him from moving and horrifies him. “What had happened to me?” he wonders. “My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked” (39). Here Elie begins to recognize his need to stay in the shadows to survive. Just after this scene, the crowd of prisoners is on the move and being beaten. Elie describes himself as “hiding behind others” to avoid the blows (40).
The need to keep attention off of himself shows up again during a health inspection at the concentration camp. Elie knows that any slight imperfection could send him to the fires of the crematoria, and that his prison number tattoo must be noted to follow through on notes from the exam. Thus, Elie “had but one thought: not to have my number taken down and not to show my left arm” (72). He runs quickly by the examiners to provide the smallest show of his good health and to hopefully be passed over and survive. It works.
Perhaps the most devastating instance in which Elie chooses to preserve his life by staying in the shadows is the night of his father’s death. Elie’s father is sick and calling out to him when an officer orders silence and begins beating the man viciously in the head. Elie does not make a move or noise to interfere, sharing that “I was afraid, my body was afraid of another blow, this time to my head” (111). Elie’s instincts for self-preservation take over in the instances listed above, keeping him out of the light of attention so that he has more of a chance for survival.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Marion Wiesel. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. Book.
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