Name: _________________________________________ Period: __________________

Night –Reading Questions

2. Where does Elie live and how old is he at the start of the story?

3. How does Elie describe his father’s characteristics on page 2?

4. What happens to the foreign Jews in Elie’s town? What do the people left behind say may have
happened to them?

5. When Moshe returns, what story does he tell about what happened to the others?

6. How do the people react to Moshe’s story? WHY do you think they react this way? (What does it
suggest about human nature?)

7. Why doesn’t Elie’s father want to emigrate to Palestine?

8. What was the Jews’ first impression of the German soldiers in their town?

9. What makes Elie say the following? “The race toward death had begun” (8).

10. What are the restrictions placed on the Jews?

11. What does Elie’s father say about the yellow star and why is this ironic?

12. What are the ghettos and what is life like for the Jews there?
13. Complete the following quotation: “It was neither German nor Jew who ruled the ghetto—it was
______.” Explain what this means.

14. What is the terrible news Elie’s father brings when he returns from his meeting of the council?

15. What is significant about the knocking that came on the window in the middle of the night?

16. What are some signs that the Jews remain hopeful despite the bad news?

17. What is the first time Elie ever sees his father weep?

18. Who does Elie consider his first oppressor and what is the link between Elie and those oppressors?

19. What are the Jews loaded into in order to transport them away from their town? What is symbolic or
significant about this?

20. How many people are in each car?

21. What do the Germans do to make sure no one escapes from the cars?

22. Why is this method effective and what quality of human nature does it rely on in order to work?
Name: _________________________________________ Period: __________________

Night –Reading Questions

Chapter Two
1. What does the German officer say will happen now if anyone escapes from the train car? How is this
different from the earlier threat and why is this significant?

2. What is it that Madame Schachter screams out in the night? How is this an example of foreshadowing?

3. What affects Elie more profoundly than Madame Schachter’s screams? Why do you think this is worse?

4. What do the people do to silence Madame Schachter? What does this suggest about human nature?

5. Where does the train stop?

6. What news is given to the people by the Jews who returned with water?

7. What is Birkenau?

8. What sight greets the Jews in the night at Birkenau?

Chapter Three

1. What does Elie say they left on the train in addition to their cherished objects? What does this mean?

2. Why are Elie and his father told to lie about their ages?
3. What do the young people consider doing as they are being led away from the trains? What do the elders
say to stop them?

4. How is the infamous Dr. Mengele described?

5. What does Elie see the lorries delivering into the flaming ditches?

6. Why does Elie have trouble believing that people could really burn other humans?

7. What does Elie’s father tell him in response?

8. What does Elie contemplate doing rather than dying in the flames?

9. What is significant about people saying the Kaddish in this scene?

10. Elie says he felt revolt rise in him for the first time. What is it exactly that he is thinking?

11. What does Elie say had been “consumed” by the flames?

12. What are the Sonder-Kommando?

14. An SS officer appears in the barracks and tells the Jews they have only two choices at Auschwitz. What
are those two choices?

15. Why is Elie’s father struck and how does Elie react? How does his reaction mark a change in him?
WHY does this change occur?

16. What is ironic about the warning signs posted by the electric fences?

17. What is the sign posted over the gates of Auschwitz? What is ironic about this?

18. What does the Polish prisoner in charge tell the Jews they must have above all else if they are to
survive? How does this connect with Elie’s earlier experience by the flaming ditches? (See question
#11.)

19. Who is Stein and what lie does Elie tell him? Why?

20. What is the new camp Elie and his father go to after leaving Auschwitz?

21. If light is traditionally a symbol of truth and understanding, of all that is good, then what do you think
night and darkness symbolize?
Chapter Four
1. With whom does Elie become friends with while working in the electrical equipment warehouse?

2. How does Elie avoid losing his gold crown?

3. What does Elie feel has become his whole life at this point in his experiences?

4. What advice does the young French girl give to Elie? Where does he meet her again?

5. How does Elie react when Idek beats his father? He says, “That is what concentration camp life had
made of me” (52). What does he mean by this?

6. What does Franek do in order to get Elie’s gold crown?

7. What does Elie do to anger Idek so that he whipped him twenty-five times?

8. Why is Elie happy rather than afraid when the bombs start to fall?

9. What question does the man ask when the pipel is being hanged and what is Elie’s answer?

10. Describe Elie’s reaction to BOTH hangings when he has his soup afterwards. WHY does he react the
way he does each time?
Name: _________________________________________ Period: __________________

Night –Reading Questions

Chapter Five
1. On Yom Kippur, what are the two reasons Elie doesn’t fast as Jews traditionally do?

2. Elie and his father are in separate blocks. What is Elie’s new job?

3. What exactly is “selection?”

4. What is the “inheritance” Elie’s father gives to him when he is left behind at the camp when Elie leaves
to work?

5. What happens to Akiba Drumer?

6. What promise had Elie and the others made to Akiba Drumer and how do they break that promise?

7. What physical ailment strikes Elie and what happens to him as a result?

8. Why does the man in the hospital say he has faith in Hitler?

9. What are the two options for Elie and his father, and what do they decide to do? Why?

10. What does Elie learn after the war about what happened to those left behind?
Chapter Six

1. On the evacuation march, Elie begins to contemplate death. What is appealing about dying to Elie? (cite
SPECIFIC thoughts he has about it)

2. What stops him from surrendering to death?

3. What does Rabbi Eliahou’s son do during the forced evacuation? What prayer does it inspire in Elie?

4. What does Juliek do in his last hour of life?

5. Discuss the significance of the following quote: “He was playing his life. The whole of his life was
gliding on the strings—his lost hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future” (90).

6. At the selection in Gliewitz, how do Elie and his father manage to stay together?

Chapter Seven
1. What does Elie suddenly realize when he thinks his father is dead?

2. When the train comes to a stop, what do the SS order the people to do?

3. How do the people react to the order? What does this reveal about human nature and how they have
been affected by their experiences?

4. When the train stops in a town, what happens to cause the German workmen to “[take] a lively interest
in this spectacle?”
 5. What scene later in Elie’s life mirrors this experience? How does he react in this new situation? What
does it reveal about Elie?

6. Who is the boy named Meir and what happens to him and his father?

7. How old is Elie now Why do you think he mentions his age at this specific point in the story (at the end
of this specific scene)? (What effect is he creating or what point is he trying to make by doing so?)

8. Who is Meir Katz and what happens to him?

9. When they arrive at Buchenwald, how many of the 100 men in the train wagon have survived?

Chapter Eight
1. When they see the high chimney of the crematory at Buchenwald, how does it affect them? How is this
different from when they first saw the crematories at Birkenau? Why is this difference in reaction
significant?

2. What does Elie think he is really arguing with when he is arguing with his father?

3. What causes Elie to feel “ashamed forever?”

4. What causes Elie to think of Rabbi Eliahou’s son?

6. What advice does the head of the block give to Elie regarding his father and himself?

7. What were Elie’s father’s last words? How does Elie respond?

8. How does he react to his father’s death? What reaction/response does he say he might have found if he
searched the recesses of his weakened conscience?

Chapter Nine
1. For the remainder of Elie’s time at Buchenwald, what is his only desire?

2. When the camp is liberated, what is their first act as free men?

3. When Elie looks in the mirror at the end, what does he see staring back at him?