Directions: For each of the following topics listed below, write one page illustrating your thoughts on the subject.
v From your packet of ten, choose two that are the most important to you. Edit and revise these two and include in front of your other entries.
v The cover of your project needs to reflect Night and in some way relate to the events that happened in the story.
v There is a potential for extra credit for this assignment for those who go above and beyond the expectations explained in class.
What was the worst part about the Holocaust? How would you have reacted if the Holocaust had happened to you? Would you have wanted to live through the whole thing or die in the beginning? Why?
Describe your closest relationship with another human being. How is your relationship similar to Elie’s relationship with his father?
Put yourself in the mind of a German officer assigned to Auschwitz. Describe your entire day. Extra credit will be assigned to those essays that long exceed the traditional guidelines of this assignment.
Reflection 4: Psychic Powers
Madame Schacter has what seems to be a premonition or extra sensory perception. Describe how you would have felt if you were one of the Jewish young men who beat or gagged her in the cattle car, once the door was opened to reveal, “In front of us flames. In the air the smell of burning flesh” (Wiesel, 26). Do you believe in the powers of ESP or in premonitions? Give examples. How does this woman’s predictions make the events of Elie’s life more dramatic?
Reflection 5: Emotion
At the beginning of Chapter 1, Elie’s father is described as without emotion and Elie notes, “My father wept” (Wiesel, 16). Imagine you are Elie and write an interior monologue about how you are feeling about his transformation. What sorrows and regrets do you think his tears might display?
Are you a person who shares their emotions with others or do you hold your emotions inside. Are there certain times when your thoughts should remain undisclosed or when it might be inappropriate to show your feelings and other times when it is better for people to know how you feel? What does society illustrate about sharing one’s feelings?
Reflection 6: Denial
One theme that resonates throughout the first chapter of Night is denial. Describe at least three instances of denial in this chapter and then analyze why a Jewish community in Hungary as late as 1943 would still be in denial. Compare the denial shown in Night with how the townspeople of Laramie, WY must have felt after Matthew Shepherd was murdered. What would make them not acknowledge the transpiring events? What would some of the advantages and disadvantages of becoming aware of the situation?
Think of an instant where you or someone you know practiced denial. What were the circumstances?
How do you feel about death? Would you prefer to die first or after the rest of your family? What would drive someone to parricide? Under Holocaustal circumstances, why keep working and hang-on to life?
Reflection 10: The Cycle of
History
Describe some other points in history that have been as horrific as the Holocaust? Since history tends to repeat itself, do you think another Holocaust will arise in the future? How can we learn from our past mistakes? What can be done to make sure something as terrible as the Holocaust never happens again? Without acknowledging the situation, what might happen?