Night Decision Making

Refusing to be separated from his family was what got Elie into concentration camps in the first place. Elie’s main priority is to stay with his family, no matter what happens to them. On page 30, the author said “...Martha, came to see us. Weeping bitterly, she begged us to come to her village, where she could give us safe refuge. My father did not want to hear of it. . . Naturally, we refused to be separated.” (pg. 30) This quote alone sets a very common trend throughout the whole rest of the book. It shows that Elie and his family have very strong family bonds and won't let anything but sheer death separate them. By

south Poland, was one of the camps that Elie imprisoned in. Even with all the death around him, Elie still managed to survive. Years later after his liberation, Eliezer would eventually write a book about his experiences in the camps. The book, titled Night, shows the real account of Elie while he stayed in concentration camps during World War Two. Eliezer told of the horrific acts that the prisoners of Auschwitz suffered, including how he managed to survive. I will be arguing that Elie’s father helped increase his chances of survival more than he decreased them. I will mainly focus on the fact that Elie’s reason for living was to stay with his father, also time where Elie’s father kept him away from danger, and finally giving him advice to survive.

“ I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath? That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me…”(54). Life at a concentration is one for himself. It is too much of a risk caring for someone else in those conditions. This form of thinking is what a majority of inmates take on in order to survive. Elie is frustrated at having to take care of his father instead of himself. “He was right, I thought deep down, not daring to admit it to myself. Too late to save your old father…You could have two rations of bread, two rations of soup… It was only a fraction of a second, but it left me feeling guilty.”(111). Immediately he feels guilty at those thoughts but he keeps having them. He doesn’t want to feel glad to stop having to worry about his father yet deep down he would.

After 3 weeks at Auschwitz, they get deported to Buna, which is a turning point for the relationship between Elie and Chlomo. The camps influence Elie and give him a crooked mind focused on staying alive and nothing else. This leads to him disregarding his father. This twisted way of thinking, due to the camps, is making Elie cheer during bomb raids at Buna. He states his thoughts “But we were no longer afraid of death, at any rate, not of that death” (57). This shows that he is willing to die to see the camps destroyed. The most horrifying event that demonstrates his twisted mind is when Eliezer pays no heed to his father while he was being repeatedly beat with an iron bar. Eliezer, rather than acting indifferent and showing nothing, actually feels angry with his father. “I was angry at him for not knowing how to avoid Idek’s outbreak” (52). The new lifestyle of the camps affected Elie and his relationship with his father for the worse.

When Elie and his family are sent to a concentration camp, he is fortunate enough to not be separated from his father. At first, this is a relief, and is father is his will to survive. “The idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate me. To no longer exist. To no longer feel the excruciating pain of my foot… My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breathe, out of strength, desperate. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.”(86)

People have a tendency, known as social proof, to believe that others' interpretation of the ambiguous situation is more accurate than their own. Hence, a lack of response by others leads them to conclude that the situation is not an emergency and that response is not warranted. Finally, empirical evidence has shown that the bystander effect is negated when the situation is clearly recognized as an emergency. In a 1976 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Lance Shotland and Margaret Straw illustrated that when people witnessed a fight between a man and a woman that they believed to be strangers to each other, they intervened 65 percent of the time. Thus, people often do not respond appropriately to an emergency situation because the situation is unclear to them and as a result, they have misinterpreted it as a non-emergency based on their own past experience or social cues taken from others.

The Nazi army dehumanized the Jewish people by depriving them of love. Elie, along with most of the other people in the camps, aren’t really accepted socially by anyone. They weren’t accepted as a person, and no one even knew them by their names; furthermore, they were known by the number they had tattooed on their arms. On page 42, Elie says “I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.” By having their names taken away, the Jewish people had their social acceptance stripped from them. Also, their families were taken away from them, and they had to do whatever they could to stay with them. As Elie said on page 30, “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone.” By separating the Jews from their families, they lost the love from them. By depriving the jews of social acceptance and their families, they hardly felt any

That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me...”.Even though he wanted to stand up for his father he didn’t do anything and watched Idek beating his father because he was too scared to get beaten by Idek,just like his father did. Other example might include on page 109,when at the end he stands up for his father against his neighbors and insults them; he says, “I began to insult his neighbors. They mocked me. I promised them bread, soup. They laughed. Then they got angry; they could not stand my father any longer, they said, because he no longer was able to drag himself outside to relieve himself.”.He stood up for his father but he didn’t dare to threaten the neighbors and be braver against them and protect his father from his neighbors. These were examples were Elie wanted to stand up for him self or his father but he didn’t or when he did he didn’t do it seriously, because he was too scared. If he stood up for himself/his father the kommandant might have killed him but at least he would’ve died with bravery and his daring. He should have been more serious and speak

Social psychology first examined the phenomena later termed “bystander effect” in response to a 1964 murder. The murder of a young woman with as many as 38 witnesses and none who helped until it was too late. The bystander effect is individuals seeing an emergency situation but not helping. There are many reasons why individuals do not respond: diffusion of responsibility, not noticing or unsure if it is an emergency, and not wanting to be liable if the person still dies are a few.

Now being powerless against the Nazi’s, Elie can’t defend his father due to learned helpness obtained by the camp veterans telling them it's impossible to resist. Learned helplessness connects to the Holocaust because, just like Eliezer, the Jews were treated horribly for so long that they “learned” they were helpless when it came to change their

Throughout the novel, we can understand that in the beginning, the relationship between Elie and his father was not the best because Elie believed his father cared more about the Jewish community than him. However, by the time the father and the son only had each other, they were depending on each other. Elie was only living for his father because he knew his father would not survive without him. They were both helping each other in a ways surviving. For example, Elie gave his father lessons in marching step, to help him survive (55). Also, Elie became less and less emphatic toward his dad during the concentration camp days. The Nazi sabotages the wonderful bond a father and a son had together. Elie could see his own father get beaten up and even than; he had no emotion or anger (39). Once his father got beat up with an iron bar, and Elie did nothing to help him, he just stood there (54). Even thought he had no emotion, even when his father past away, Elie said “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...

People did not care enough to help the girl who was dying. When the killer was caught, he told the police that he “figured nobody would do anything thing to help”(Wainwright 2). People also did not care enough to even talk to the police after the murder. Lieutenant Jacobs said that “there are people over there who saw everything, and there hasn’t been a peep out of them yet” (Wainwright), which shows that people not only don’t care if someone is dying, but they also do not care if what they saw could help the police catch the killer of the woman. What the killer said to the police shows that he knows that this is what most people would do if faced with the same

In the beginning of the book, before experiencing life threatening difficulties, Elie was much more determined to stay with his family (in order to survive). Eliezer thought that his father was what kept him going and gave him strength, he was certain that the right thing to do was to stay with his dad. In chapter 3 Wiesel states, “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone” (30). In these sentences, Elie explains that he and his father needed to stay together. This quote also shows what Elie’s emotions were; he was scared to suffer through the concentration camp alone. Elie also shows his need for family when he says, “Franek, the foreman, assigned me to a corner... ‘Please, sir ... I’d like to be near

In the 2007 article “the bystander effect” the author Dorothy Barkin’s was talking about the reasons why most people decide not to get involved in complex situations. Many think that the reasons maybe very obvious such as the fear of possible danger to one’s self or having to go through long legal proceedings. However, the author talks about two main reasons for such actions. The first being ambiguity, the fact the most people do not know how to evaluate different situations and there lays most for the decision making. As knowing what the problem that you are facing in that moment, that alone creates a high-pressure environment that most people would not like to be involved in. Not to mention, being able to help effectively

Darley and Latane begin their essay by using solid examples of when the bystander effect presented itself, and why people were harmed because of it. They explain why nice people do not help in certain situations, and why someone can pass by a person in distress when others are around, and why more people respond when no one is around. Darley and Latane show what it takes for people to respond; they have to actually realize that it is an emergency and not a ruse or a normal occurrence. Sitting idly by while a dangerous situation is happening does not make someone a bad person, it just reveals their humanity.