A few days later, German army cars appear on Sighet's streets.Īt first, polite German officers take up residence in private homes and live peaceably among Jews. Although a villager returns from the capital with accounts of anti-Semitism, optimism continues to prevail. News from Budapest warns that fascism is on the rise. Elie, however, pleads with his father to sell out and immigrate to Palestine Chlomo insists that he is too old to begin again. Knowing Hitler's fierce hatred for Jews, villagers doubt that Hitler can remain in power long enough to kill an entire race. In the spring of 1944, the success of the Russian front seems to spell doom for the Germans. Elie and other villagers conclude that Moshe has lost his mind.Īs 19 pass, the people in the village follow the war via London radio news. Traumatized by the slaughter, he weeps as he retells the story. After being shot in the leg, Moshe was assumed dead. Their killers made sport of tossing babies into the air and using them for targets. Months later, Moshe returns to report the fate of the exiles - after they arrived in Poland, they boarded trucks bound for a forest, where they dug huge graves and were systematically machine-gunned. The citizens of Sighet accept exile as a natural burden of war and contend that the deportees are working in Galicia. One day, without warning, Hungarian police arrest Moshe along with other foreigners and take them away aboard cattle cars. Moshe insists that each seeker must rely on inborn traits that will open the way to comprehensible answers suited to the individual. He wisely encourages the impressionable boy to pursue God through questions, but to expect no understanding of God's answers, which remain unsatisfied in the soul until death. After other worshippers depart the synagogue following the evening service, Moshe shares private time with Elie. Lacking a mentor to guide his contemplation of religious mysticism, he turns to Moshe the Beadle, a very poor and pious loner who works as a handyman at the synagogue in Sighet. Near the close of 1941, twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel - son of a devout Romanian shopkeeper and brother to three girls, two older and one younger - recounts his avid pursuit of Hasidic Judaism through study of the Talmud and the cabbala. It will be easier for you to follow the discussion in these Notes if you number the segments in pencil before you begin reading.) (Note: Wiesel's book is divided into nine unnumbered segments.
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