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A summary of Section 4 in Elie Wiesel's Night. Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of Night and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.
Night is a 1960 memoir by Elie Wiesel based on his Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, toward the end of the Second World War in Europe.
Read more about Elie Wiesel’s life and other works. Eliezer’s loss of faith in God begins at Auschwitz. When he first sees the furnace pits in which the Nazis are burning babies, he experiences the beginnings of doubt: “Why should I bless His name?”
Eliezer 's unit is joined by prisoners from a musicians' unit, including Juliek, a violinist. They are sent to work in an electrical equipment warehouse. One of the musicians tells Eliezer that he has landed in a good unit, but that the Kapo, Idek, occasionally goes berserk and beats people.
Eliezer’s loss of faith comes to mean betrayal not just of God but also of his fellow human beings. Wiesel seems to affirm that life without faith or hope of some kind is empty. Yet, even in rejecting God, Eliezer and his fellow Jews cannot erase God from their consciousness.
Eliezer's faith in God is shared by many of his fellow Jews in the town of Sighet. On the trains to the concentration camps, people discuss the banishment from their homes as trial sent from God to be endured—a test of faith.
Eliezer feels a first sense of rebellion against his religion and his God. The misfortune of his family losing its home and possessions didn't shake Eliezer's beliefs. But the vision of children and babies thrown into the flames eats away at his sense of God and the universe.
