Father and God (the Father) in Wiesel’s Night as Response to the Holocaust

Shannon Quigley

doi:10.3390/h10010057

Abstract

The proposed paper will begin by looking at the father–son relationship in Elie Wiesel’s Night. I will then briefly note the father–child relationship between God and Israel in the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. I will link the two challenges evident in Wiesel’s Night and in his continuing thought after the Shoah—the loss of family and the loss of God, his faith and/or his understanding of God—and note how these affect one another. After further assessing Wiesel’s father imagery in Night, I will note how Wiesel’s story, eventually making its way into the current version of Night, played a critical role in affecting the thought of Christian leaders and post-Holocaust Jewish–Christian reconciliation efforts.

Highlights

I will look at Wiesel and his father’s relationship as represented in Night and assess how this may have affected his understanding and experience of God during and after the Holocaust, in connection to the Hebrew Bible
Before delving into Elie Wiesel’s representation of his experience of the Holocaust, with his father, in Auschwitz, as represented in Night, I will briefly look at his life prior to the war to contextualize his experience and his story
The excruciating words truly bear witness to the agony of Wiesel’s father, but of Wiesel himself in these last moments of his father’s wrestle against death that had so relentlessly pursued him for minutes, hours, and days that eventually turned into months. Wiesel states that this was the most horrendous night of his life—in light of the long night that he endured, beginning with that first night in the camp—we find Wiesel held hostage in a night within the longest night, a crushing blow within a seemingly endless fight he had been losing one hard strike after another

Summary

Introduction

I will look at Wiesel and his father’s relationship as represented in Night and assess how this may have affected his understanding and experience of God during and after the Holocaust, in connection to the Hebrew Bible. Before delving into Elie Wiesel’s representation of his experience of the Holocaust, with his father, in Auschwitz, as represented in Night, I will briefly look at his life prior to the war to contextualize his experience and his story. The innocence of his childhood was shattered, and his spirituality was quickly ripped away His experience of the death camps and the loss of his father, his mother and one sister in the camps would affect his religiosity and his understanding of God throughout his life, as evidenced in his writings.

God inthe

God as Father and Caretaker in the Prophets

His Father and His God

Night and Wiesel’s Effect on Post-Holocaust Christian Scholars

Conclusions