In our Year 10 English class, we read the memoir 'Night' by Elie Wiesel. This book is a record of his experience during WWll. He uses a range of techniques like similes, imperatives, repetition and metaphor. His writing had an emotional impact on me - it was very moving, sad and devastating. I learned how horribly Jews were treated even after the war and Elie Wiesel's autobiography showed me how many more camps there were alongside Auschwitz.
When Elie and his family were in the cattle car on the train the SS officer said, "There are eighty of you in the car … If anyone goes missing you will all be shot like dogs." This quote uses a simile to compare the Jews to dogs. This section of the book made me feel shocked to realise how badly the SS officers treated the Jews as if they were nothing.
As everyone arrived at the concentration camp they were all split up into groups, "Men to the left! Women to the right!" The technique used in this quote is an imperative, the exclamation marks are there to show that these words of command are yelled instead of spoken. When Elie was being parted from his family it really hit me hard, it made me think about what would happen if I was parted from my family, especially at such a young age. (Elie was only 14 at the beginning of the war.) It disgusts me that the SS could watch all of the families be separated and still be okay to carry on with their work and not even bat an eyelid.
Elie stated that when he was first being put through the selection process he watched children being thrown into the big firepits and burning to their death, "Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky." The technique used in this quote is repetition because he repeated 'Never shall I forget' seven times. Reading this part of the memoir made me feel horrible. How could you throw a child into a firepit and have no sympathy for the child or the parents?
When Elie and his father were part of the death march one of the guards yelled, "Faster, you tramps, you flea-ridden dogs!" The technique used in this quote is another imperative and also a metaphor. The SS guard compared the prisoners to a pack of flea ridden dogs which shows that the guards didn't think of the prisoners as humans, they now saw them as if they were animals. This section made my stomach sink, it made me feel sad and disgusted that the Jews were treated this way from the second they stepped into the camp until their very last breath.
After reading the memoir 'Night' by Elie Wiesel I was moved. The techniques he used in his writing, like similes, imperatives, repetition and metaphor, had a big impact on me because Elie showed how badly the Jews were treated. Other Holocaust survivors have now shared their stories because of Elie. Many of them stated that because Elie and others have shared their stories, this made it feel possible for them to do so as well. For us, the Holocaust was just a big event in the world's history, but sadly for many people, this was their reality.
