American Literature

The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)

Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

World History

This collection uses primary sources to explore Night by Elie Wiesel and the Holocaust.

A 1994 painting by Fritz Hirschberger, entitled *Indifference*, depicting a Jewish woman and three children at a camp.

As part of the painting, the following quotation is visible: “Fear not your enemies, for they can only kill you. Fear not your friends, for they can only betray you. Fear only the indifferent, who permit killers and betrayers to walk safely on earth.” It is attributed to Edward Yashinski, a Yiddish poet who survived the Holocaust only to die in a Communist prison in Poland. Fritz Hirschberger was born in Dresden, Germany in 1912 to a Christian mother and Jewish father. He and his family were expelled to Poland in 1938. He joined the Polish Army but fled to Russia when Poland fell under the German invasion. Wearing a Polish Army uniform in Russia was cause enough for arrest, and Hirschberger was sent to a labor camp in Siberia. Upon his release, he learned of the death of his entire family in German concentration camps. He draws from these experiences in approximately 40 paintings.

A painting by Fritz Hirschberger, called *Deutsche Kammermusik*, which shows Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz playing the violin.

At the Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp, some of the world’s finest musicians were forced to perform for the amusement of the Nazi SS guards, while the guards’ Jewish victims were tortured and gassed. Hirschberger’s wife’s cousin, like Juliek in *Night*, played the violin in one of the death-camp orchestras at Auschwitz-Birkenau.


A violin from Mirecourt, France, circa 1880.

Juliek, a young man Wiesel meets in the Monowitz-Buna camp, plays the violin in the concentration camp band. He later carries the violin with him on the death march to Gleiwitz. Even while suffering his own death, Juliek doesn’t lessen his grip on his violin.

A stone from a walkway at Auschwitz, gray with ash, in a wooden box from Poland.

A stone fragment from a walkway, taken from Auschwitz, is stored in a wooden box from Poland. The stone is covered in ash, possibly from the crematorium. The item was given to the University of Michigan by Constance Harris, collector of Jewish artifacts and author of *The Way Jews Lived: 500 Years of Printed Words and Images*.

An excerpt from an intelligence report and deposition of Kurt Gerstein, an eyewitness to mass gassings, April 16, 1945.

This is an intelligence report and deposition of First Lieutenant Kurt Gerstein. Gerstein was in charge of the gassings at several concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Although he had anti-Nazi sentiments, he was an eyewitness to multiple gassings at Nazi concentration camps. 

A typescript of a personal narrative by Harry Blas, a Jewish Holocaust survivor.

Harry Blas shares his experience living in Łódź, Poland under German occupation and his imprisonment and liberation in Auschwitz. After the war, he searched throughout Europe for missing family members, then immigrated to the United States with his wife, Erika, in 1952.

Scrapbook entries documenting the arrival of Lawrence Layden, a US Army officer, at Buchenwald shortly after its liberation in April 1945.

Lawrence Layden was a captain in the US Army Air Corps. As part of the Sixty-Seventh Tactical Reconnaissance Group during World War II, Layden kept a detailed account of his wartime experience. Layden arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp just six days after its liberation. 

A 2014 image of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp with a view towards the camp entrance and tracks on the left.

This image, taken in 2014, shows the entrance to the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. This would be the first view of the camp for Jewish prisoners as they arrived in cattle cars. The train tracks are visible on the left.

A 2014 image of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp with a view of the railway and a cattle car.

This image shows a cattle car sitting on the train tracks outside of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. Jewish prisoners would arrive on these tracks in a similar cattle car. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was the largest Nazi death camp.

An aerial photograph of Auschwitz III, the Monowitz-Buna camp, taken on January 14, 1945.

This image was taken by the United States Central Intelligence Agency three days prior to the evacuation of Auschwitz. Auschwitz III was a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration-camp system. Wiesel was here three days prior to evacuation.

A photograph of Buchenwald inmates on liberation day, April 16, 1945.

As they entered Buchenwald, US troops from the Eightieth Infantry Division took photos of the prisoners. Even after the prisoners were liberated, many died of malnutrition and disease. Wiesel is pictured in the second row of bunks from the bottom, seventh from the left, next to the vertical wooden beam.

A map of Nazi concentration camps and a graph listing numbers of those who perished.

This map and graph are taken from *U.S. News and World Report* on April 3, 1995. Elie Wiesel was a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Monowitz-Buna, Gleiwitz, and Buchenwald from May 1944 to April 1945.

A German photograph taken in 1943 of Jewish civilians during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, Poland.

It is estimated that four hundred thousand Jews were imprisoned within the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland, which was established in 1940. Because so many people were forced to live in 1.3 square miles, the death toll was high. In April of 1943, on the eve of Passover, members of the Jewish resistance fought back against the police and SS who were there to liquidate the ghetto by deporting the remaining population to concentration camps. This would become the largest Jewish uprising of World War II and would inspire more uprisings in other ghettos. Wiesel was forced into a ghetto in Sighet in April of 1944. While Sighet was smaller than Warsaw, nearly fourteen thousand Jews from the Sighet Ghetto were deported in May 1944. Most were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz.

An excerpt from an interview with Elie Wiesel on December 20, 1983 about his remembrance of the Holocaust.

Elie Wiesel discusses the need to always remember the Holocaust and the consequences of forgetting.

Questions

1. Look at the painting entitled [*Indifference*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1536). Explain the meaning of the quotation within the painting. How does this quotation reflect what happened to Elie Wiesel during his time spent in the Nazi death camps? Use textual evidence from *Night* to support your answer. 
2. Examine the painting entitled [*Deutsche Kammermusik*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1537) and the painting entitled [*Indifference*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1536). In *Night*, Wiesel and his father were part of the orchestra block at the Monowitz-Buna camp even though neither played an instrument. Why might the Nazi SS have had music playing during selections? Why might Hirschberger, a Holocaust survivor, have painted *Indifference* and *Deutsche Kammermusik* nearly fifty years after his experience in the Nazi concentration camps? How might his need to paint these pictures be similar to Wiesel’s need to write *Night*?
3. Look at the [image of the French violin](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1538). In *Night*, Juliek plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 61 to the dying in Gleiwitz after the evacuation of Auschwitz. Wiesel wakes the next morning to find Juliek dead and his violin crushed. Using the internet, find a recording of Beethoven’s Concerto and listen to it. What feelings does the song evoke? Why did Juliek choose this song to play that tragic evening? What might the crushed violin symbolize?
4. Why might someone keep a [stone from a walkway at Auschwitz](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1539)? What is the importance of saving something from the past, especially an item that brings painful memories? Have you ever felt compelled to save something to help you remember an experience?
5. Read the [intelligence report and deposition of Kurt Gerstein](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1540). What is your initial response to this report? Gerstein was anti-Nazi but still continued to work with the SS; does knowledge of his position make his crime seem less or more evil? How does Gerstein’s account of the selection process compare to Wiesel’s experience at Birkenau? Find textual evidence in *Night* to support your analysis.
6. Read the [personal narrative by Harry Blas](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1541) about his experience living in Poland under Nazi rule, his imprisonment in Auschwitz, and his liberation. Find three pieces of textual evidence from Blas’s narrative that show the similarities between his account and Elie Wiesel’s in *Night*. 
7. Examine the [aerial photograph of Auschwitz III](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1545), the Monowitz-Buna camp, taken three days prior to the evacuation of Auschwitz. The US had been taking aerial photographs of Auschwitz for over a year.   What would be the purpose of this kind of surveillance without intervention? Do you think the Allied forces knew what was happening in these camps scattered throughout Germany and Poland?
8. Analyze the image of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp with a view towards the [camp entrance](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1543) and the image of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp with a view of the [railway and a cattle car](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1544). Describe what you see in these photographs. How do these images, taken over seventy years later, contrast with the scene that Wiesel witnessed in 1944? Why do tourists travel to places like Auschwitz? Listen to the excerpt from an [interview with Elie Wiesel](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1549). According to Wiesel, why is it important for future generations to never forget the atrocities of the Holocaust? 
9. Study the [photograph of Buchenwald inmates](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1546) on liberation day. What do you notice about their faces? Their bodies? Their living conditions? 
10. Look at the [map of Nazi concentration camps](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1547). Why might the Germans have moved Wiesel from Auschwitz III to Buchenwald? Why were the camps closest to the Eastern front closed prior to 1944? 

Activity

1. Divide students into groups of three or four. Ask each group to choose one page of the [scrapbook entries documenting the arrival of Lawrence Layden at Buchenwald](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1542). Each group should annotate its page and share with other groups, explaining how each page of the scrapbook relates to what Wiesel might have experienced during these days post-liberation. After each group has shared its scrapbook page, ask each student individually to write a one-page reflection about this primary source.
2. Ask students to choose a scene from *Night* and create a visual representation, using the painting entitled [*Deutsche Kammermusik*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1537) and the painting entitled [*Indifference*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1536) as inspiration. Each student should select a quote from the novel that corresponds to their work.

Teaching Guide: Exploring *Night* and the Holocaust

Resources

1. “[Elie Wiesel](https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007176),” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 
2. “[Introduction to the Holocaust](https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143),” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 
3. [Online Exhibitions](https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 
4. [Holocaust](https://www.facinghistory.org/topics/holocaust), Facing History and Ourselves. 

Overview

Published in English in 1960, Elie Wiesel’s *Night* is an autobiographical account of his experience in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald from 1944-1945. Wiesel was born in Sighet, Romania in 1928, and raised in the Jewish faith. He was just fifteen years old when he and his family were deported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau in a cattle car. His mother and younger sister both perished at Auschwitz, while Wiesel and his father remained together through several camp transfers within Auschwitz and a death-march evacuation from Auschwitz III, the Monowitz-Buna camp, to Buchenwald. He lost his father on January 29, 1945 but managed to stay alive and was liberated by the American army on April 11, 1945. 

It was ten years before Wiesel could write his memoir about his experiences within the concentration camps, and then he struggled to get it published; the world was not ready to hear about the atrocities of Hitler’s Final Solution. However, *Night* was well-reviewed and would later go on to sell over ten million copies. Wiesel continued to write over the years, becoming one of the most prominent voices among Holocaust survivors. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Elie Wiesel died on July 2, 2016 in Manhattan.

English

Elie Wiesel's *Night* and the Holocaust

elie-wiesel-night-holocaust_01_4c9eca7885f20ff886217a504530f5ca.jpg

Courtesy of Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota via Minnesota Digital Library.

Hirschberger, Fritz, “Indifference,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/4c9eca7885f20ff886217a504530f5ca.

A 1994 painting by Fritz Hirschberger, entitled Indifference, depicting a Jewish woman and three children at a camp.

Cite this item

Tips for Students

Item 1 of 14 in the Primary Source Set Elie Wiesel's Night and the Holocaust