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•     Wiesel , one of four children: Hilda, Béa, and Tzipora, was interested 

in becoming a cabbalist, much to the disapproval of his father.

•     He met Moche the Beadle, a poor man in the community, who 

became a mentor to Wiesel (in relation to cabbala).

•     Moche the Beadle was taken prisoner by Hungarian police and, after 

surviving the ensuing slaughter, tried to tell people his story to warn them, 

but they didn’t believe him.

•     Eventually, German soldiers appeared in Sighet, removing valuables 

from all Jewish houses, forcing the Jewish people to wear a yellow star, and 

setting up ghettos.

•     They formed a Jewish government inside the ghetto to keep 

everything organized and peaceful

•     Once the Jews learned of the deportations Elie and others went 

around warning others to be prepared

•     Elie and his family were forced to march to the small ghetto where 

they stayed   for a few days and then went to the synagogue, which was 

packed to the brim, to wait for 24 hours to be deported 

•     Wiesel and his family were sealed in a cattle wagon for deportation, 

which had eighty people per car.

“Physically he was as awkward as a clown.”     

-Simile

Wiesel used this simile to help characterize 

Moche. This shows that Moche was awkward 

because clowns are usually associated with 

being clumsy. This, therefore, helps the reader 

better understand that Moche was a clownish 

type of person

A closed eye symbolizes the Jewish people of 

the town because even though Moche warned 

them that the Germans were going to come 

and try to kill them they chose to ignore him. 

It was like their eyes were closed and they 

could see what was right in front of them.

"Optimism soon revived" (page 19)

Though optimism lead the people of Sighet 

astray, it also can be good. The first time I 

moved I was optimistic about the move and 

was able adjust much better to everything 

new. Also I was able to make more friends 

then I would have if I was just sad and 

pessimistic. 

•     The Wiesels are forced in the wagon where there 

was so many people they could only sit by taking turns 

standing up

•     It was stiflingly hot and they weren’t given enough 

food to placate their hunger

•     They were forced to give up all of their gold and 

silver possessions

•     A woman, Madame Schächter, continued to yell 

about a fire that she could see and they had to tie her 

up and hit her because how she was acting

•     Once they finished their journey by wagon they 

saw the furnaces because they were at Birkenau, the 

reception center for Auchwitz

"The barometer of confidence soared" (page 36)

-Metaphor

Wiesel is comparing the level of confidence to the level 

of atmospheric pressure which a barometer can read. 

The confidence in the atmosphere was so noticeable it 

was similar how you could read the change in 

atmospheric pressure on a barometer.

A frying pan represents the situation the Wiesels are in 

due to the expression "out of the frying pan into the 

fire". After the terrible conditions in the wagon, the 

frying pan, they have arrived at a much worse place, 

Auschwitz, which is the fire.

"The barometer of confidence soared"(36)

Last year in my history class the teacher told us 

that we were all going to have to write a three 

page essay during the final and with that we all 

thought we were going to fail the final, it would be 

a three page essay and 100 multiple choice 

questions in two hours. The next day she told us 

that the essay would be written before hand and 

everyone was, then, much more confident that 

they would pass it ws like you could read it in a 

barometer.

•     The Wiesels arrive at Birkenau and are rushed into lines and forced 

to leave all of their possessions on the train 

•     The women are separated from the men and while Elie and his 

father are waiting in line they are told to lie about their ages

•     They make the first cut and are forced to march toward the 

furnaces and Elie considers suicide by the electric fence but at the last 

moment they are brought to a barracks

•     They were forced to strip and run through the cold, a series of 

showers, all of their hair was quickly shaven, and they arrived in at 

their final barracks 

•     They were forced to stand waiting for hours, then they ran 

through the snow while being beaten to arrive at Auschwitz

•     They meet their cousin and Elie lied to him telling him that he had 

heard news of his family

•     Ellie and his father and then at last are moved to Buna and after 

his time in the concentration camps he has started to lose his faith in 

God

"... those flames which consumed my faith forever"(43)

personification

Elie uses the flames to show how the entire situation 

changed his view on the world.   He gives the fire the 

human characteristic of being able to consume 

somebodies outlook on life, only a people could change 

a persons outlook on life. This helps the read better 

understand the feelings that Elie was feeling at that 

moment and how much it changed him.

A black hole symbolizes what has been happening to 

the Jewish people in Auschwitz. It has been removing 

their faith in God, as many of them have stopped 

believing that God has absolute justice. Also it removes 

some of the hope as Elie even debates committing 

suicide or not instead of instead of being sent into the 

furnaces.

"Meir Katz, a giant, had a child's trousers, and Stern, a 

thin little chap, a tunic which completely swamped 

him"

This reminds me of when I was in third grade and the 

drama club came to give us a presentation. We had a 

dress race game against the older kids. By accident the 

boxes were switched so we all were trying to get in 

clothes that were giant for us and the older kids 

couldn't fit in the clothes meant for us.

•     Elie was offered a bribe is he gave away his shoes to get a good 

labor placement but rejected it and in the end Elie and his father were 

given a job in an electrical warehouse

•     Elie was sent to have his gold filling removed but he was able to 

say he was sick twice and on the third time the dentist was imprisoned 

for illegally selling the fillings

•     The officer in the warehouse often had crazy fits and one of them 

he beat Elie and a girl in the warehouse helped him after he was beaten

•     A foreman later learned he still had his filling and because Elie 

didn't give it up he hit his father when he was marching

•     Elie accidentally saw his officer having sex with a young Polish girl 

and in return was lashed 25 times

•     There was a bombing on Buna by the U.S. and no one was fearful 

they were all happy that some of their captors might die but the only 

causality was a man trying to steal some soup

•     There were many public hangings but the only one that effected 

Elie was that of a young boy who looked like a sad angel, the boy 

stayed alive for 30 minutes with the noose around his neck because he 

weighed so little

"Two lambs, with a hundred wolves lying in wait for them. Two 

lambs without a shepherd" (66)

Metaphor

Elie uses the metaphor of the people being the wolves and the 

soup being the lambs to show how much they really wanted to 

eat. How it was almost a primal urge to go and get the soup. 

To show how powerful they were in the situation but only one 

of the hundred "wolves" was going to risk trying to get the 

defenseless "lamb". How fearful they were and how beaten 

done they were that they couldn't risk it.

It is like Elie is a frog in a boiling pot of water and he has 

adjusted to the killing temperature. When his father is beaten 

by the officer he doesn't blame the officer he blames his 

father because he should know how to deal with the officers 

fits of rage. Also he has learned to deal with most of the death 

around him, after watching a man being hung be still 

remembers how good the soup was the night like it was any 

other normal day.

"Two lambs, without a shepherd - a gift. But 

who would dare" (66)

This situation was like the one that occurs in 

middle school whenever a teacher leaves the 

room. When everyone thinks about going crazy 

but there is always that fear of trouble. In the 

end nothing would ever happen because the 

risk was always to high for middle schoolers to 

deal with.

•     At the new year when the other prisoners are praying Elie questions God in 

anger about all that has happened to the Jews

•     There is another selection and everyone is terrified about what could happen

•     Elie number did not get written down by the doctor and his father tells him that 

his number wasn’t written down either

•     Elie’s officer promises his block that no one will be killed but no one believes 

him

•     All of the men with the numbers that were written down were made to stay in 

the barracks one day and before Elie leaves his father gives him and knife and a 

spoon

•     When Elie returns from work he is amazed to see that his father is still alive

•     Elie’s foot gets injured and he has to stay in the hospital where his foot is 

operated on but the doctor says that it will heal and he will be able to walk on it 

again in a fortnight

•     Before the fortnight is up the prisoners are forced to march to a new camp, the 

people in the hospital can stay but Elie evacuates because he fears being killed 

after everyone leaves the camp

•     Elie gets two rations of bread, bandages his foot because he can’t find a shoe 

that he will fit his injured foot, and wears multiple layers of shirts and pants to 

brace against the cold

"It was an injection of morphine"(86)

Metaphor

Elie is calling the news of the front line coming 

closer to them an injection of morphine. Those 

rumors help numb the pain a little so they aren't 

constantly in fear that they will never be saved. It 

helps them deal with what they are going though 

but like morphine it can never solve the problem, 

only helps to forget about it for a little while.

Snow not only brings the cold like it did on the 

night that Elie left Buna, but it also weakens 

you. The sharp bite of the cold it accompanies 

and cause to stop work and tire you very 

quickly. The camp tired Elie of his belief, he 

gave and gave until he couldn't give anymore, 

the snow piled too high for him to deal with 

and he could barely pretend that he still cared 

for God and respected him enough to fast or 

praise his name.

"The snow never ceased" (90)

The winter of 2014 was almost eternal snow. It 

was always snowing and school kept being 

canceled. The world outside of the houses was 

just a blanket of white, often the snow plows 

struggled attempting to pass through the 

indomitable amount of snow.

•     They ran and ran, those who could keep up were shoot and those 

behind him would have to run over him

•     They stopped to rest in an abandoned town, all the of men tried to 

crowed into a small broken factory and it was crowded, Elie made it in 

and fell asleep but his father forced him awake

•     Elie realized they if you fell asleep you would be waking up so he 

forced himself and his father to stay awake

•     A rabbi Elie knows talks to him looking for his son, Elie says he 

doesn’t know anything, but once the man is gone he realizes the man’s 

son ran away from him because he was so slow

•     They again run, but there is no longer any shooting because the 

cold does the officers jobs

•     Once they reach Gleiwitz they are forced into barracks which were 

so over crowed they were on top of each other mixed in with the dead 

•     Elie ends up next to Juliek, the violinist from Buna, but is forced 

away when he is being suffocated in the pile

•     Juliek kept his violin and plays Elie to sleep and dies playing the 

violin

•     After three days they are forced to wait in the snow for uncovered 

cattle wagons that take them to their next destination

"He was playing his life. The whole of his life was 

gliding on the strings..." (100)

Metaphor

Elie uses a metaphor to express what the song made 

him feel. The song meant so much to him it was if 

Juliek was telling his life story, it gave him a 

connection to they dying man. This was the last gift 

that he gave, to ease the pain of the living with his last 

actions. He put the last energy of his life into the song 

to it was very meaningful to Elie and to the other 

people trapped in the barracks.

The violin symbols this chapter because it was what 

brought Elie to sleep that night in the barracks. It was 

the instruments which serenaded the men in the 

barracks. Similar to how the snow and cold brought 

about the eternal sleep for so many of the prisoners on 

the way to Geilwitz. The violin was also the only shred 

of hope that Elie had to survive and like the officers 

tried to keep the men's spirits up so they could make it 

to the camp.

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