Isak Wall

Ms. Crowell

English 11

19 March 2019

Father and Son

One of the most prominent parts of the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel surrounds his

relationship with the author’s father Shlomo. They experience so much together throughout their

lives, from the ghettos to the death camps, and these ordeals affect both men in different ways.

Elie’s father grows older in the camps and he cannot do many things by himself. Elie feels the

responsibility of his father's well being and feels that he must stay alive for him. They experience

pain and oppression, which brings them close together, and time and again their lives are at risk,

meaning every moment together could be their last. Elie’s relationship with his father alters

dramatically from their time in Sighet as his father's health declines in the camps; and as their

relationship changes, Elie's view of his father does as well when he feels burdened by him.

Elie and his father have a surface level father and son relationship while they live in

Sighet. Shlomo cares about his work a lot at the beginning of the memoir, and spends most of his

time at work or aiding the community. Elie says his father is not very sentimental and knew a lot

about the culture and what is around him. Elie wants to study a Jewish scripture called the

Kabbalah, but his father does not support his study of this and he attempts to restrict this course

of study from Elie. When there are first rumors of the Germans coming to Sighet Elie says: “I

had asked my father to sell everything, to liquidate everything, and to leave” (9). His father is not

ready to make a big decision like this, so decides to stay in Sighet until it was too late. As an

active member of the community, Shlomo heard about what would happen in Sighet after the
Germans had come in. He shares with his son that they will go to the Ghettos but cannot share

what other information he receives. Elie thought a lot about his father and when the Ghettos are

evacuated he says “My father was crying. It was the first time I saw him cry. I had never thought

it possible” (19). Before this, he had always seen his father as such a strong presence who did not

cry. Many boys look up to their father's as invincible figures, incapable of pain, and for Elie to

see his father broken like this makes him realize that he is a human capable of feeling pain. This

is the first point in time where Elie's view of his father starts to change. He had not known his

father extremely well before and only saw the side of him that he showed to the world, one of

confidence and strength.

At the beginning of Elie and Shlomo's time in the concentration camps, Shlomo and Elie

grow closer and rely on each other to survive, as they both teach each other about survival. When

Elie and Shlomo first arrive in Auschwitz, the Nazis take away Elie’s mother and sisters

immediately. After the new prisoners split up into two lines and Elie says, “I first wanted to see

where they would send my father. Were he to have gone to the right, I would have run after him”

(32). This shows that Elie would go with his father even if it leads him to death. He cares so

much about his father during their camp experience and could not go on without him. As their

time in the camps continues, Elie begins to question his faith in God and if his mother and sisters

are still alive. Whenever the question of these things come up him and his father “pretended, for

what if one of us still did believe” (46)? Neither of them truly believe that everything is fine, but

for the sake of each other, they decide to keep their true feelings concealed. Shlomo is a middle-

aged man when they first arrive at the concentration camps and as he grows older, he becomes

weaker. At this point, Elie begins to have to take care of his father. He does not mind helping his

father, but it causes him a great deal of stress and pain to do so, as it takes away from the time he
could be doing things for himself, such as getting his own food and having more rest. Helping

his father creates problems to Elie, and as time goes on it becomes harder for him to do it. Many

people in the camp argue that the only way to survive in Auschwitz is to be selfish. Although

Elie does not stop helping his father, he does start to realize helping his father harms his own

well being. Elie's love of his father continues to stay strong in the camps, but he starts to see the

possibilities of what he could do without him. The father and sons relationship grows stronger in

the early stages of the camps as they depend on each other for a lot. Elie now sees his father's

true personality and decides to continue to help him despite the difficulty it causes him.

As the two men's time in the camps comes to an end Elie starts to feel the burden his

father is putting on him is harder to deal with. Shlomo becomes dependant on Elie as his health

rapidly declines. Shlomo grows weaker as time goes on and starts to accept that. When they are

moved from camp to camp, some inmates try to pick up and throw Shlomo's body out of the train

car they are in but when Elie yells, “He's not dead! Not yet!” (99) it causes them to stop. This

shows that Elie knows that his father is close to death and he realizes it. Elie is ready for his

father to die at this point, although his morals disallow him to abandon him. When searching for

his father one morning he thought, “If only I didn't find him! If only I were relieved of this

responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of

myself” (106). Elie states that he does not want to be like another son he saw who abandoned his

father when he fell behind during the run to the next camp. As they moved on to the next camp,

Shlomo’s weakness makes him unable to stand up or leave his bunk, and Elie must now do

everything for him. In this period of time, Elie grows more and more frustrated with his father

and does not want to deal with him anymore. The father and son become so co-dependent at this

point that it compromises their relationship. Elie spends all his protecting and helping his father
that he resents him. When Shlomo dies Elie says: “if I could have searched the recesses of my

feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!” (112). Elie and Shlomo’s

relationship had been entirely based around Elie protecting Shlomo’s life at the end, and

although Elie never stops helping him, he feels that he has failed him, as he ends up feeling

relieved at his father's death due to the tortured time they spend together in the death camps.

Elie and Shlomo’s relationship says a lot about the way father and sons relationships

change when they are put through hardships like that. They never stop loving each other, and

perhaps even grow closer in the camps, but for Elie, he feels that Shlomo is causing him more

pain than good. Elie believes that he failed his father by feeling free when he dies but he had

done everything he could to try to protect him up to that point despite having negative thoughts

about him. Elie loves his father and protecting him until the end shows his loyalty to him never

changes. Their time in the camp makes Elie and his father know each other better. Elie’s view of

his father never stops changing throughout the book whether positive to negative, from Sighet to

the concentration camps his love for him stays the same.
 Work Cited

Wiesel, Elie. Night. Translated by Marion Wiesel, New York, Hill and Wang, 2006.