Bhav Singh 2/27/15
Remembrance Blog
FIRE
— US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy Polskie Koleje Panstwowe S.A.
Link To Railcar Photograph
In the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel contains a scene where the Jewish people from Sighet are taken away on a railcar to where there a camp awaits their arrival, this camp was Auschwitz. The passage that I would like to refer to for this artifact is: "THERE WAS A WOMAN among us, a certain Mrs. Schachter..."Auschwitz"(Wiesel, 24-27) nobody had ever heard that name". In this passage the Jews confront a torn-apart women named Mrs. Schachter who lost her husband and two elder sons in the first transport, by mistake. Mrs. Schachter along with 79 other people in this railcar were terrified and waiting for answers of the reason why they were on the railcar. She also is constantly sobbing and crying. Mrs. Schachter continuously claims that she sees a fire, disturbing the other Jews on the railcar and diminishing their chances of getting any rest/sleep. The Jews claim that she is hallucinating because she is thirsty. After various attempts to calm Mrs. Schachter down such as putting a damp rag on her forehead she still claims that there is a fire. The Jews get furious and they give her blows to her head to stop her increasingly annoying hallucinations. This quote gives a vivid description of the terror and awful processes that they had to endure. In the railcar there are 80 people stuffed and looking for somewhere to sleep. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum offers the dimensions of this railcar which are: 26 feet (length) x 7 feet (height) x 8 feet (width). This size shows the dehumanization of the Jewish people because with an area of about 200 ft squared each person is given one 2ft square of space(thats about one arm's length). The Jews in this part of night were treated like livestock being transported to another farm and were seen not as people but as animals. These "animals" were given minimum water and food, which also shows how awful the Jews were treated. To further the dehumanization of these "animals" we can look at this quote: "She was pointing somewhere in the distance, always the same place. No one felt like beating her anymore. The heat, the thirst, the stench, the lack of air, were suffocating us"(Wiesel 26). It wasn't just nutrition, the unsanitary treatment, the lack of air and ventilation play a key role. The author's use of diction in the part of the quote when he says "and with every screech of the wheels we felt the abyss opening beneath us. Unable to still our anguish, we tried to reassure each other". When the author says abyss it makes the reader think of an un-ending deep trench. This abyss makes me think that they opened the wrong door and there is no going back to their old life, before the abyss. Maybe that abyss is supposed to represent their pathway into hell. Speaking of hell, the author says "it was like she was possessed by an evil spirit"(Wiesel 25) which shows the pain that Mrs. Schachter has suffered by losing her family and being treated as an animal. Their amount of worships towards god shouldn't include an evil spirit, maybe they are losing faith now. Also what I found interesting about this artifact is that the US Holocaust Memorial Museum only writes in their description the dimensions of the railcar, not the health issues, not even the stuff transported in it. They must think that the other information is self-explanatory.
FIRE
Link To Railcar Photograph
In the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel contains a scene where the Jewish people from Sighet are taken away on a railcar to where there a camp awaits their arrival, this camp was Auschwitz. The passage that I would like to refer to for this artifact is: "THERE WAS A WOMAN among us, a certain Mrs. Schachter..."Auschwitz"(Wiesel, 24-27) nobody had ever heard that name". In this passage the Jews confront a torn-apart women named Mrs. Schachter who lost her husband and two elder sons in the first transport, by mistake. Mrs. Schachter along with 79 other people in this railcar were terrified and waiting for answers of the reason why they were on the railcar. She also is constantly sobbing and crying. Mrs. Schachter continuously claims that she sees a fire, disturbing the other Jews on the railcar and diminishing their chances of getting any rest/sleep. The Jews claim that she is hallucinating because she is thirsty. After various attempts to calm Mrs. Schachter down such as putting a damp rag on her forehead she still claims that there is a fire. The Jews get furious and they give her blows to her head to stop her increasingly annoying hallucinations. This quote gives a vivid description of the terror and awful processes that they had to endure. In the railcar there are 80 people stuffed and looking for somewhere to sleep. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum offers the dimensions of this railcar which are: 26 feet (length) x 7 feet (height) x 8 feet (width). This size shows the dehumanization of the Jewish people because with an area of about 200 ft squared each person is given one 2ft square of space(thats about one arm's length). The Jews in this part of night were treated like livestock being transported to another farm and were seen not as people but as animals. These "animals" were given minimum water and food, which also shows how awful the Jews were treated. To further the dehumanization of these "animals" we can look at this quote: "She was pointing somewhere in the distance, always the same place. No one felt like beating her anymore. The heat, the thirst, the stench, the lack of air, were suffocating us"(Wiesel 26). It wasn't just nutrition, the unsanitary treatment, the lack of air and ventilation play a key role. The author's use of diction in the part of the quote when he says "and with every screech of the wheels we felt the abyss opening beneath us. Unable to still our anguish, we tried to reassure each other". When the author says abyss it makes the reader think of an un-ending deep trench. This abyss makes me think that they opened the wrong door and there is no going back to their old life, before the abyss. Maybe that abyss is supposed to represent their pathway into hell. Speaking of hell, the author says "it was like she was possessed by an evil spirit"(Wiesel 25) which shows the pain that Mrs. Schachter has suffered by losing her family and being treated as an animal. Their amount of worships towards god shouldn't include an evil spirit, maybe they are losing faith now. Also what I found interesting about this artifact is that the US Holocaust Memorial Museum only writes in their description the dimensions of the railcar, not the health issues, not even the stuff transported in it. They must think that the other information is self-explanatory.
No comments:
Post a Comment