User:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox
Wiesel's story as told in Night
Moshe the Beadle
.jpg){kind=link}
Night opens in Sighet in 1941. The book's narrator is Eliezer, a pious Orthodox Jewish teenager who studies the Talmud by day and by night "weep[s] over the destruction of the Temple." To the disapproval of his father, Eliezer spends time discussing the Kabbalah and the mysteries of the universe with Moshe the Beadle, caretaker in a Hasidic shtiebel (house of prayer).[1]
In June 1941 the Hungarian government expelled Jews unable to prove their citizenship. Moshe, a foreigner, is crammed onto a cattle train and taken to Poland. He manages to escape, saved by God, he believes, so that he might save the Jews of Sighet. He returns to the village to tell what he calls the story of his own death, running from one household to the next: "Jews, listen to me! It's all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!"[2]
He tells them that when the train crossed into Poland it was taken over by the Gestapo, the German secret police. The Jews were transferred to trucks and driven to a forest in Galicia, near Kolomaye, where they were forced to dig pits. When they had finished, each prisoner had to approach the hole, present his neck, and was shot. Babies were thrown into the air and used as targets by machine gunners. He tells them about Malka, the young girl who took three days to die, and Tobias, the tailor who begged to be killed before his sons; and how he, Moshe, was shot in the leg and taken for dead. But the Jews of Sighet would not listen, making Moshe Night's first unheeded witness.[3]
And as for Moshe, he wept.[4]
Sighet ghettos
The Germans arrived in Sighet around 21 March 1944, and shortly after Passover (8–14 April that year) arrested the community leaders. Jews had to hand over their valuables, were not allowed to visit restaurants or leave home after six in the evening, and had to wear the yellow star at all times. Eliezer's father makes light of it:
(Poor Father! Of what then did you die?)[5]
The SS transfer the Jews to one of two ghettos, each with its own council or Judenrat. Eleizer's house on Serpent Street was in the larger ghetto in the town centre, so his family were able to stay in their home, though because it was on a corner, the windows on the non-ghetto side had to be boarded up.
The general opinion was that we were going to remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Then everything would be as before. It was neither German nor Jew who ruled the ghetto – it was illusion.[7]
In May 1944 the Judenrat is told the ghettos will be closed with immediate effect and the residents deported. Eleizer's family is first moved to the smaller ghetto, but they are not told their final destination, only that they may each take a few personal belongings. The Hungarian police, wielding truncheons and rifle butts, march Eleizer's neighbours through the streets. "It was from that moment that I began to hate them, and my hate is still the only link between us today."[2]
Here came the Rabbi, his back bent, his face shaved ... His mere presence among the deportees added a touch of unreality to the scene. It was like a page torn from some story book ... One by one they passed in front of me, teachers, friends, others, all those I had been afraid of, all those I once could have laughed at, all those I had lived with over the years. They went by, fallen, dragging their packs, dragging their lives, deserting their homes, the years of their childhood, cringing like beaten dogs.[8]
Notes
- ^ "Moshe" in Night, Hill & Wang 1960 and Bantam Books 1982; "Moishele" and "Moishe" in All Rivers Run to the Sea, 1994, pp. 59, 60, 319; "Moishe" in Night, Hill & Wang 2006.
- ^ a b Night 1982, p. 17.
- ^ Sternlicht 2003, p. 30; Fine 1982, p. 13.
- ^ Night 1982, pp. 4–5.
- ^ Night 1982, p. 9.
- ^ "Elie Wiesel, First Person Singular", Public Broadcasting Service, 2002.
- ^ Night 1982, pp. 9–10.
- ^ Night 1982, pp. 14–15.