Night Study Guide Use the following questions to review the novel.
Chapter 1
1. Describe Moshe, the Beadle.
2. Why did Eliezer pray, and why did he cry when he prayed?
3. Upon his return, what story did Moshe tell? Why didn’t the people believe him?
4. Cite examples of how the Jewish citizens of Sighet began to lose their rights.
5. What is a ghetto?
6. Why did the citizens resist the truth, even when it was in front of them?
7. What were the various opportunities that the Weisels had to avoid the Holocaust
8. Describe the conditions in the train (at the end of the chapter).
Chapter 2
1. Explain, “our eyes were opened, but too late.” Where was the train at this point?
2. What was foreshadowed by Madame Schacter’s nightmare?
3. What did some of the passengers do to quiet Madame Schacter?
4. Where did the train finally stop?
Chapter 3
1. When questioned by the S.S. Officer, why did Elie lie about his age and occupation?
2. What was the first horrifying sight that Elie at first disbelieved?
3. Explain what Elie meant when he said, “Never shall I forget these flames which consumed my faith forever.”
4. How had Elie changed in a short time?
5. What was Elie’s first impression of Auschwitz after leaving Birkenau?
6. What were the ironic signs at the entrance to the camps?
7. What sort of identification was used on the prisoners?
8. Why was the prisoner in charge of Elie’s block removed from this position?
9. What were the prisoners’ rations at each meal?
Chapter 4
1. What were the objectives of the medical examinations?
2. Why were the Jewish musicians not allowed to play music by Beethoven?
3. Describe one of Idek’s bouts of madness.
4. How did Elie initially avoid losing his gold crown?
5. Whom did Elie meet years later on the Paris Metro?
6. What happened when Elie refused to give his crown to Franek? What was the end result?
7. Describe the scene with the soup cauldrons.
8. During one of the preliminary “ceremonies” for a hanging, what did Juliek whisper to Elie? What does this
suggest?
9. During one hanging, Elie and the other prisoners cried. What made this hanging different from others?
Chapter 5
1. Why didn’t Elie fast on Yom Kippur?
2. What advice was Elie given to pass the selection process?
3. How did Elie’s father respond when he learned his name had been written down?
4. What did Akiba Drumer ask the others to do for him? Did they do it?
5. Why was Elie placed in the hospital?
6. Why was the camp to be evacuated? What did Elie learn of the fate of those-who stayed behind in the hospital?
Chapter 6
1. What happened to anyone who could not keep up with the march?
2. What was Elie’s internal struggle during the Death march?
3. What horrible realization did Elie come to concerning Rabbi Eliahou and his son? How did Elie respond to this?
4. What was Juliek’s last act?
5. How did Elie help his father when the selection was made?
Chapter 7
1. How did Elie again help his father when they were on the train?
2. Describe the scene Elie witnessed between the father and son.
3. How many got out of the wagon? Where had they arrived?
Chapter 8
1. Explain how the father/son roles had been reversed in the case of Elie and his father?
2. Why was Elie’s father being beaten?
3. What did Elie think of the advice given to him by the head of the block?
Chapter 9
1. What happened on April 5th?
2. What was the resistance movement? What did they do?
3. What did the prisoners do when they were freed?
4. How does Weisel end the book?
Key Facts of Note:
full title · Night author · Elie Wiesel
type of work · Literary memoir genre · World War II and Holocaust autobiography
time and place written · Mid-1950s, Paris. Wiesel began writing after a ten-year self-imposed vow of
silence about the Holocaust.
Narrator/point of view · Eliezer (a slightly fictionalized version of Elie Wiesel); Eliezer speaks in the first
person and relates the autobiographical events from his perspective.
tone · Eliezer’s perspective is limited to his own experience, and the tone of Night is therefore intensely
personal, subjective, and intimate. Night is not meant to be an all-encompassing discourse on the
experience of the Holocaust; instead, it depicts the extraordinarily personal and painful experiences of a
single victim.
tense · Past
setting (time) · 1941–1945, during World War II
settings (place) · Eliezer’s story begins in Sighet, Transylvania (now part of Romania; during Wiesel’s
childhood, part of Hungary). The book then follows his journey through several concentration camps in
Europe: Auschwitz/Birkenau (in a part of modern-day Poland that had been annexed by Germany in 1939),
Buna (a camp that was part of the Auschwitz complex), Gleiwitz (also in Poland but annexed by Germany),
and Buchenwald (Germany).
protagonist · Eliezer antagonist · ultimately, Hitler, but in the book, dr. Mengele
major conflict · Eliezer’s struggles with Nazi persecution and with his own faith in God and in humanity
rising action · Eliezer’s journey through the various concentration camps and the subsequent deterioration
of his father and himself
climax · The death of Eliezer’s father
falling action · The liberation of the concentration camps, the time spent in silence between Eliezer’s
liberation and Elie Wiesel’s decision to write about his experience, referred to in the memoir when Eliezer
jumps ahead to events that happened after the Holocaust
themes motifs symbols · · · Eliezer’s struggle to maintain faith in a benevolent God; silence,
inhumanity toward other humans; father-son bonds; tradition, religious observance; Night, fire
foreshadowing · Night does not operate like a novel, using foreshadowing to hint at surprises to come.
The pall of tragedy hangs over the entire novel, however. Even as early as the work’s dedication, “In
memory of my parents and my little sister, Tzipora,” Wiesel makes it evident that Eliezer will be the only
significant character in the book who survives the war. As readers, we are not surprised by their inevitable
deaths; instead, Wiesel’s narrative shocks and stuns us with the details of the cruelty that the prisoners
experience.
