Before the Germans arrive at Sighet, night time is for Elie a time of spiritual and physical renewal. It is a time of studying religious texts, of prayer, and of restful sleep. This comforting sense of night is forever lost as Elie experiences the horrible, dreadful nights of the concentration camps; those experiences are the ones, which allowed a dark flame to enter his soul and devour it, destroying him forever. Night begins in 1941, when, the narrator of the story, Elie, is twelve years old. Having grown up in a little town called Sighet in Transylvania, Elie is a studious, deeply religious boy with a loving family consisting of his parents and three sisters. One day, Moshe the Beadle, a Jew from Sighet, deported in 1942, with whom Elie had once studied the Cabbala, comes back and warns the town of the impending dangers of the German army. No one listens and years pass by. But by 1944, Germans are already in the town of Sighet and they set up ghettos for the Jews. After a while, the Germans begin the deportation of the Jews to

the concentration camp in Auschwitz. The overwhelming sense of Elie's experiences during the first day of camp is that it is like a nightmare. As Elie and the other prisoners walk past the chimneys at Birkenau, they stand motionless, unable to comprehend the sights: "We stayed motionless, petrified. Surely it was all a nightmare? An unimaginable nightmare?" (Chapter 3, pg. 28) Elie thinks he's dreaming. After pinching his face, in disbelief he utters, "How could it be possible for them to burn people, children, and for the world to keep silent? No, none of this could be true. It was a nightmare...." (Chapter 3, pg. 30). They begin to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. For the first time, Elie begins to feel a sense of revolt against a God who would allow something like this to happen and these experiences begin changing and destroying Elie. At this very stage in Elie’s horrifying journey, I believe it is the beginning of the dark flame entering his soul and devouring it. He has always been a religious boy who enjoyed spending time at the temple with his spiritual mentor, Moshe the Beadle and had a strong faith in God. But at this early point in Elie’s journey it is apparent that a dark flame has entered his soul and has began destroying Elie’s strong faith in God and has caused him to question God when misfortunes come upon him, thus resulting in Elie’s doubt about God’s absolute justice, when he had always been a deeply religious boy and so devoted to God. That first night of camp is forever etched into Elie's mind. His entire narration seems like an account of one long, endless night: "So much had happened within such a few hours that I had lost all sense of time. When had we left our houses? And the ghetto? And the train? Was it only a week? One night-one single night?" (Chapter 3, pg. 34. It is evident that even from one night in the concentration camp Elie’s life has already began being destroyed by his experiences: "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.... Never shall I forget those moments, which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."(Chapter 3, pg. 32) At Birkenau, Elie is separated from his mother and sisters. Realizing the importance of being together, Elie and his father lie about their age. After a brief stay at Auschwitz, they are moved to a new camp, Buna. At Buna, Elie goes through the dehumanising process of the concentration camps. Both he and his father experience severe beatings at the hand of the kapos (overseers). In one instance, Elie receives twenty-five strokes of the whip from Idek the Kapo for walking in on him while he is with a girl. All the prisoners are overworked and undernourished. Many lose faith in God, including Elie. A week later, the prisoners notice a black gallows in the middle of the camp. A youth from Warsaw, a strong, well built boy is hanged for stealing. Everyone is forced to march past the dead youth and stare into his eyes and at his "lolling tongue of death." Although there are other hangings, one has a particularly hau

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