Warning of the Impending Doom
The people of Sighet found it hard to believe Moishe the Beadle due to certain reasons. The first is because of the status of Moishe the Beadle in the society that they lived in. He was poor, and thus was not particularly liked by the people; therefore, they did not pay any keen attention to him, and what he said. Another reason is the fact that he had returned to Sighet; they could not picture how he had escaped if everything he had told them was true.
In the book, the author mentions the London radio which they listened to every evening, it provided them with encouraging news; therefore, they found it hard to believe Moishe. To add to this, they received good news from the Russian front, and in their hearts, they knew that the Germans were going to be defeated, and no harm would come to them. Some of them said, “…..Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to….” (Wiesel 6).
Other warnings that they did not heed were the takeover of the Hungarian government by the Fascist party which led to the formation of a pro-Nazi government; the German troops entering Hungary with the approval of the Hungarian Government; and anti-Semitic acts that started occurring in Budapest. The definite warning sign was the appearance of German vehicles, and the stationing of German soldiers in Sighet (Bloom 25).
At the time, I would not have heeded Moishe’s stories since I could not have pictured a world that could have allowed such inhumane acts to occur. I cannot say that modern Journalism has fully dealt with the issue of complacency in reporting atrocities that occur in the world. There is still much more than the media has to do to ensure whole truthful information about inhumane acts is told to the whole world.
The present times, and atrocities
Something like the holocaust can still occur in our world today. It is a terrifying thought, but the truth is that as humans we have today mostly shown our indifferences towards the human sufferings which occur daily in different parts of the world. Even though small efforts are being made, these are not still enough to deter current and future perpetrators of such acts from doing so. Night teaches us how to react to such atrocities as the genocide in Rwanda, the past conflict in Sudan between the North, and South, and the ongoing conflict in Congo.
It is important to mention that these are recent, and some are ongoing atrocities that the world has allowed to occur right under its watch. The major lesson that is learned from the holocaust, as experienced and narrated by Elie Wiesel, is to speak out, and voice our opinions whenever the lives of humans are threatened, and inhumane acts are performed on our fellow humans (Sibelman 5). This is because by being silent, the perpetrators of atrocities in different parts of the world will continue their acts to the detriment of their victims (Hernandez 47).
Another major lesson is that we should not let national borders, and politics hinder us from voicing our opinions and acting to stop atrocities from being perpetrated in our world. The indifference that is evident during the time of the holocaust, and which Elie’s father noted by saying, “…..The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria…” should be a lesson for us not to act the same (Wiesel 33). Whenever such atrocities occur, we should not be silent, and we should be sensitive to the plight of the victims of atrocities.
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. Elie Wiesel’s Night. New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2009. Print.
Hernandez, Alexander. “Telling the Tale: Sharing Elie Wiesel’s Night with Middle-School Readers.” The English Journal 91.2 (2001): 45-49. Print.
Sibelman, Simon. Silence in the Novels of Elie Wiesel. Providence: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Print.
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1999. Print.