The First Pages of Night

We have read the first 16 pages if Night and so far lots has been said already. We have met a character named Moishe who is Elie's master and teacher. He teaches him about the Kabbalah and God. His father doesn't want him learning the Kabbalah though because you are supposed to be at least 30 years old, otherwise he won't be able to understand or comprehend what it is. I think that it must be pretty complicated if you have to be 30 to learn about it and that Elie was a very ambitious, studios 12 year old, especially when it came to his faith and religion. Moishe is a foreigner, meaning he is Jewish but he isnt from Sighet, so he gets deported and everyone thinks that they are just being taken to their home country or somewhere else. When in reality they were taken to Poland and then handled by the Gestapo and put into trucks which then drove out into the forest and forced the people to dig trenches and then climb inside. They would then be shot in the back of the neck/head to be killed. They would also throw infants and children in the air to use as practice for machine gun targets. Mioshe survived because he was shot in the leg and then he played dead for days and got himself up and got all the way back to Sighet to tell them about it. No one believed him until the Germans started being mean after moving in. At first they were nice but that was so they would gain the Jews trust and then they started being more mean and when the ghettos appeared they still had hope because they thought that was the furthest the Germans would go.

I think that the Jews had reason to not believe Moishe because of how horrific the things were. I think that in my opinion the infant being tossed into the air was the most gruesome one, even though everything about this is horrific and wrong I just thought that stood out to me. If people were told that these things were happening and coming form a homeless guy, lots of people these days I think would also discredit it. They would be just like the Jews and just say the guy is going crazy and ignore it. When the Jews did start to see fascism taking over and got moved to the ghettos and still had hope is when I start to understand why Ellie is so frustrated now looking back. He realizes they shouldn't have had that must trust in the Germans who put on an act to look nice. Elie even uses a reference to theatre. Elie write the book with anger and you can see it in the words he uses. When Moishe comes back to tell his story, no one believes him and he gets very sad and loses his will to live. This is very sad and discouraging, Moishe survived and walked all the way, with a bullet in his leg, just to have people not believe him and accused him of being crazy! When the Germans made the ghettos, Elie looking back is very frustrated that the Jews couldn't see the clear indication of the Germans trying to kill them and is very angry that literally no one tried to flee.