Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night depicts the harrowing tale of the Holocaust with simple language that invites readers in through sharing the loss of the author’s identity. He shares the loss of his family, life at the concentration camps, and his experience with mass suffering. Elie, a religious young boy, spends the first part of his childhood immersed in Judaism during which he studies the Zohar “not to learn it by heart but to discover within the very essence of divinity” (5). Throughout his early childhood, Judaism consumes his existence, spending his time learning from his mentor Moishe the Beadle. Although Elie begins his journey through the Holocaust with strong faith and identity, the horrors of the concentration camps cause Elie to lose his Jewish identity and his sense of self resulting in Elie just existing within a body without an identity.
Initially a religious teenager, Elie studies the Talmud as his way of life but questions God throughout the horrors he witnesses in the Holocaust. Elie’s feelings about God evolve toward disbelief as he spends more time in the concentration camps. Elie writes, “Why did I pray?...Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (4) in order to illustrate how prayer consumes his life; not only is it the reason for his existence, but it is a necessity equal to breathing. His religion consumes his life as he dedicates his time to interpreting and questioning Judaism. Upon arriving at the concentration camps, Elie tries to continue his belief in God but struggles “because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves” (67). He acknowledges God’s existence, but questions His actions as He allows six million Jews to die. While Elie struggles with God, Hitler continues to kill millions of Jews, gypsies, Catholics, and homosexuals each day. Elie talks with his neighbor in a hospital where his neighbor says, “I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people” (81). This profoundly strikes Elie as he is part of the horrors Hitler has caused. God is “supposed” to take care of the Jewish people, yet he allows his people to perish, causing Elie to question his belief in God’s actions. Throughout the Holocaust, Elie’s relationship with God progresses from ultimate belief to struggling to understand His actions.
While in the concentration camps, the Nazis strip Elie of his identity. He loses his Judaic identity and his name, which causes Elie to forget his own sense of self. He transforms from Elie Wiesel to A-7713, the tattooed number assigned to him as his new identity. He is given his tattoo in a mundane activity where he “became A-7713” having “no other name” (42), becoming a number on a piece of paper instead of an individual with a vibrant personality. Elie’s number is called and Elie responds with “that’s me” (51) showing he is officially recognizing his number as his name. He lets go of his identity and allows the Nazis to change who he is. The number defines, within the camps, who he is; he sacrifices his identity in exchange for simplicity and order. When the Nazis take Elie’s name away from him, they rob him of his true identity. After the Holocaust, Elie takes back his name but lives on forever with the remnants of his numeric identity.
Elie’s identity, his connection to Judaism, disappears during the Holocaust as he cannot go about his usual Jewish life. Elie’s religion gives him a strong sense of who he is. He studies Talmud and participates in Jewish prayer as his way of connecting with himself. At the concentration camps, Elie pushes his connection to Judaism to the side in order to survive under the harsh condition of the concentration camps. Elie struggles with mourning others since death has become a normal part of Elie’s everyday life. Elie reflects on certain parts of the Jewish religion when he thinks, “I don’t know whether, during the history of the Jewish people, men have ever before recited Kaddish for themselves” (33). Elie comes to terms with the magnitude of the Holocaust and how he can properly grieve for others when mass murder surrounds him through the Mourner’s Kaddish. When Akiba Drumer knows he is about to die, he asks Elie to form a minion to say Kaddish for him but “three days after he left, [they] forgot to say Kaddish” (77). Before the Holocaust, Elie would have been dedicated to mourning Akiba Drumer, but his dedication to his religious practice weakens throughout the Holocaust, therefore, gathering a minion is not Elie’s priority. In order to survive, Elie needs to separate his religion from himself because his religion is the reason why he is in the Holocaust (21). The longer Elie focuses on surviving, the weaker his relationship with his religion becomes leading Elie to almost completely lose the Jewish identity he depended on before the war.
Although Elie begins his journey in the Holocaust with strong faith and identity, the horrors of the concentration camps cause Elie to lose his Jewish identity, as well as himself. Elie is initially sure of who he is, a 13 year-old Hungarian Jew, but his identity crumbles as he transitions from a boy to a man, from a fiercely loyal Jew to one who cannot practice his religion without fear of dying, and a Hungarian citizen to a French refugee. Compared to the boy he was before, his time in the Holocaust causes his identity to slip from him, creating an alien-like person.