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NIGHT

NIGHT. Section 8-9 Liberation. BUCHENWALD. The journey to Buchenwald has greatly weakened Eliezer’s father , who seems to have given in to death .

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NIGHT

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  1. NIGHT Section 8-9 Liberation

  2. BUCHENWALD • The journey to Buchenwald has greatly weakened Eliezer’s 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 Eliezer’s survival was a stroke of luck, a coincidence that does not involve rejoicing.

  7. It is Eliezer’s burden to remember the look in the corpse’s 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 man’s 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.

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