In a 5-page essay, analyze the effects of Wiesel's loss of innocence and how he deals with those effects
The Holocaust was probably the single most devastating event in world history where hundreds of thousands of innocent people who came primarily from the Jewish race ended up gassed or shot without compunction, The whole Holocaust was singularly planned to the last detail with the result that there was a systematic effort to eliminate all the Jews in Europe, a programme which went ahead regardless of all international opposition and which saw most of the Jews exterminated with only a handful eventually surviving. However this does not mean that there have not been denials of the Holocaust over the years which have sprouted up regularly and have shown that this story can be taken to be as false and invented. While this is obviously not the case, it is intriguing to analyse the facts as they come by where one has to observe the importance of discrediting those who deny the Holocaust (Niewyk, p 33).
First and foremost there is the historical evidence which faces us and where we can observe what went on inside the extermination camps. There one can see the vast crematoria, the barrack buildings as well as other evidence which corroborates the fact that Jews were gassed on an incredibly fantastic scale. Nothing can deny that fact and as one moves forward in analysis, the situation becomes ever darker and more murky. Those who deny the Holocaust perhaps have the luxury of being armchair critics in every respect and these type of critics do not have any reasonable basis on which to focus their assumptions (Evans, p 67).
In Elie Wiesel’s Night one can observe that the loss of innocence as well as a myriad of negative experiences may eventually lead to a loss of faith in God and the Creator. The novel is a great summation of what goes on inside the human mind when faced with such a destructive experience such as the Holocaust with everyone going to pieces around you, mass murder occurring right in front of you and other similar horrific experiences.
Wiesel eventually concludes that when passing through such experiences, you lose your faith in the world as you once knew it.
This brings the false logic of the Holocaust deniers into perspective yet again. For how can one say that an event never took place when there is overwhelming physical and historical evidence that it did? The deniers continue to attempt to placate everything and everyone with facts and theories which alleviate their consciousness on an issue which is largely important but which also has its own nooks and crannies (Evans p 50). The Holocaust was also intrinsically a succession of events which led to one conclusion which was the eradication of the Jewish people although those events actually happened. For example if one reads the book, ‘The Holocaust’ by Martin Gilbert, one notes that the build-up to the actual extermination of the Jews began several years before the war began so there was ample historical evidence to note that the Holocaust was actually occurring.
The extermination programme mainly focused around three camps which were designed as extermination camps and these were Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka where the only focus was to kill everyone who entered these camps. In fact the fact that there was a revolt in Sobibor was perhaps the only factor which enabled any survivors to manage to outlast the camp as the others were not so lucky. In fact there were only two survivors from the Belzec camp which had as its commander the notoriously sadistic Christian Wirth who delighted in throwing people personally into the flames. Now although this may seem to be far-fetched, there appears to be considerable historical evidence pointing to this fact and other similar terrible occurrences. However the Holocaust deniers pick on this sort of lack of physical evidence to maintain that the actual event did not occur. Now it is obvious that the body of evidence which remains is getting less by the day as many other survivors are running out of time so this is again grist for the mill of the holocaust deniers who continue insisting that the event never occurred (Niewyk, p 110).
Another logical argument which decomposes the holocaust deniers is the use of gas in the extermination camps. This gas was manufactured by a company in Germany which was eventually fined huge amounts of money after the war. Now if the company were innocent of the charge put against it it would probably have fought the case in court quite vehemently and would have won its case on the count of insufficient evidence. But undoubtedly the conscience of its executives led it to proceed with the pay-out as it was too much of a burden totally to endure. This means that the event did actually take place and that its consequences were deeply felt and that they had enormous repercussions over everything and everyone. So it is another farce coming from the Holocaust deniers to say that the event did not take place and that there is no backing to it.
After the war, the final survivors came forward to give their own accounts of the Holocaust and how this intrinsically affected them and their families. Although not everything was immediately believable, the vast majority of it was deemed to be true and one could analyse this by the fact that several accounts appear to tally. Yet again the Holocaust deniers come through and state that this is not the case and that most of the accounts are intrinsically fabricated and are untrue. However how can a person lie when confronted with such horror and toil? It is surely beyond comprehension to note that life is burdened by insecurities and unhappiness but when one has to pass through such terrifying experiences, the situation becomes much much worse. This is not to state that there may have been some historical inaccuracies in the descriptions of the survivors but the vast majority of their experiences seem to be true in every way.
Holocaust deniers come to sound as very much out of kilter with the common assumption that what was going on was terrible and without comprehension. They seem to assume that hatred of Jewry is something which has to be taken for granted by everyone in the equation although there is also the fact that the Holocaust story could be described as being a ploy to attract some sort of sympathy from the international community. This tactic is also caught upon by the holocaust deniers who tend to observe that the fanaticism of things can lead people up errant paths and this may also lead to considerable fabrication of stories and events. However this is definitely not true where the Holocaust is concerned as there is a vast and outstanding body of evidence which shows that this was truly an event which occurred and there is surely no denying the fact
Conclusion: Night which cannot be denied
The Holocaust was definitely an event which altered the course of the world’s history and which brought about a terrible change in the consciousness of man. Left to his own devices, man can certainly prove to be a despicable human being in every aspect without compunction, without mercy and without any sort of morals. The Holocaust deniers could even be said to fit into this category of people who care for nothing or nobody else but themselves and the results are truly there for all to see (Gray p 100).
At times even when viewing certain films and events, the Holocaust appears to be something surreal and one almost wishes that this was the case. However the stark truth of all this is that the event actually happened and that one cannot keep on beating around the bush denying that it did not happen. The wealth of historical evidence available as well as the vast historical evidence including the disappearance of over six million people is testament enough to the actual occurrence of the Holocaust.
Bibliography:
Donald L Niewyk, The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, 2000, p.45: "The Holocaust is commonly defined as the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II."
"How many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust? How do we know? Do we have their names?", The Holocaust Resource Center Faqs, Yad Vashem website. Accessed February 17, 2011. See also appropriate section of the Holocaust article for the death toll.
Richard J. Evans, In Defense of History, New York: Norton, 1999.
Richard J. Evans, Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, Basic Books, 2002 (ISBN 0-465-02153-0). As well as the story of the Irving case, this is an excellent case study on historical research.
Charles Gray, The Irving Judgment, Penguin, 2000 (ISBN 0-14-029899-1). Actual text of the judgment in the Irving case.
D.D.Guttenplan, The Holocaust on Trial, Norton 2002
