In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, the Jewish residents of Sighet do not believe Moshe the Beadle when he tells them about his brush with death at the hands of German soldiers. Though Moshe is accurate in his depiction of the Holocaust, there are two reasons why other Jews brush off his warnings.
The first reason is that Moshe is known as an eccentric figure within Sighet’s Jewish community. He is also a foreigner, and...
In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, the Jewish residents of Sighet do not believe Moshe the Beadle when he tells them about his brush with death at the hands of German soldiers. Though Moshe is accurate in his depiction of the Holocaust, there are two reasons why other Jews brush off his warnings.
The first reason is that Moshe is known as an eccentric figure within Sighet’s Jewish community. He is also a foreigner, and outside of Elie, no one proclaims any sadness when Moshe is deported in 1942 with other foreign Jews. As most people have no deep affinity for Moshe, they are not very likely to listen to his ranting.
The second and most important reason that the Jews of Sighet do not believe Moshe is that, in their minds, there is no way that anything like Holocaust could ever happen. The Jews that Moshe tells his story to are well-educated men and women, but they believe that in the 20th century, with its electric lights, indoor plumbing, and other miracles, no person or group would attempt to eradicate a race of people.
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