Examples of Hope in Night by Elie Wiesel Essay Example

Elie Wiesel, the resilient author of the gruesome retelling of the Holocaust, Night, writes of a Jewish family that gets separated by Nazis after they rade their town. The father and son end up in concentration camps where they try to survive together by always helping and caring for each other by never separating. Night retells the horrid massacre of millions in most of the book, however, it offers hope in the darkest times.

One example of hope is the Kapo assigned to Elie’s first concentration camp block. He treated the inmates like friends and gave them advice. He greeted them when they arrived by saying, “ … a piece of advice; let there be camaraderie among you. We are all brothers and share the same fate”(41). Later he said, “Help each other. That is the only way to survive”(41). When the Jews from Elie’s town arrived at the concentration camp, most of them thought they were going to be killed and that no one would survive. Except when the leader of the block treated them as equals and gave them advice, they had hope they would survive. By giving them tips and easy jobs, sorting electrical supplies, he greatly increased the odds of survival in many Jews minds which is ultimately what they hoped would happen.

While Elie was inside Auschwitz, they could hear the cannon shots of battle. Elie overheard two inmates talking about the Russians, “‘When?’ ‘Tomorrow night.’ ‘Perhaps the Russians will arrive before…’ ‘Perhaps’”(81). The inmates of Auschwitz knew that the Russians were nearby based on the gunshots they could hear. Moreover, if the Russians reached their camp, they would liberate them from the camp before they could be transported to a different camp because they were part of the Allies in WWII. The camp residents had hope that the Russian soldiers would rescue them before they would have to be transferred to a new camp inside Germany.

The inmates of Elie’s block were waiting to be counted during role call, but the officer was late to count them. “We were standing inside the block, waiting for an SS officer to come and count us. He was late. Such lateness was unprecedented in the history of Buchenwald. Something must have happened” (113). Reviewing history, we know that the Nazis were very organized and almost always on schedule. In the quote, however, the officer is late for roll call, a common occurrence in the camp. The prisoners soon realized that something out-of-the-ordinary must have happened. The leader of the camp might’ve had to attend a war meeting, which meant Germany is losing the war. This gave Elie hope because it could mean his release from the camp.