All by Myself - Night by Ellie Wiesel

        Birkenau became a place full of uncertainties for Elie.  Would this become the place where he last saw his family?  Could this become the place where he saw his father suffer until his death?  No one knew what fate would become of them.  Elie tried not to let the actions of others get the best of him. When Elie and his father traveled on the train, Elie tried his hardest to protect his father.  He saw how one kid killed his father over a little crumb of bread.  Elie could never imagine himself doing this to his father.  He prayed to God never to let these emotions come over him toward his father.

        “Father!  Get up from here!  Immediately!  You’re killing yourself” Elie screamed,       (100). Elie still felt these emotions for his father late in the novel before the inevitable happened.  At Buchenwald, Elie fell apart.  He tried to keep the actions and advice of others out of his mind, but it all just piled up.  Several of the inmates warned Elie to struggle for his own life and not for his father’s.  He thought he could never let this happen.  Elie later found himself looking for his father at Buchenwald.  “Don’t let me find him!  If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself” (101). The words he thought he would never say just came out of his mouth  

        After his father’s death, nothing could touch Elie anymore.  He spent his days in total idleness.  Only eating appealed to him.  He no longer thought of his father or mother.  Clearly, this long battle with survival got the best of him.  The constant moving from camp to camp, the long days with little food, and the environment around him forced Elie to act as if he were tired of going on with his meaningless life.  He was forced to care only about the well being of himself.