03: Encountering Evil: Drawing Conclusions About Characters

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Writing (Reader’s Notebook)

How do the people of Sighet respond to Moishe the Beadle’s warnings? What does this reveal about the people of Sighet? Support your answer with two pieces of evidence from the text.

Questions (Reader’s Notebook)

• Describe Eliezer in as much detail as possible: Who is he? What is important to him? What kind of person is he? Support your description with evidence from the text.
• On page 6, someone says of the deported foreigners, “What do you expect? That’s war…” What does this line reveal about the attitude of the people in Sighet?
• On page 10, Wiesel writes: “The race toward death had begun.” What is the impact of this line on the reader? How does it propel the action of the story?
• On page 7, Eliezer says to Moishe the Beadle, “Why do you want people to believe you so much? In your place I would not care whether they believed me or not…” Thinking back to the preface of the text, do you believe that Wiesel feels this way about his own story?

Discussion (Oyster Academy Entry)

Knowing what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust, how does reading today’s text impact you as a reader? How do you think Wiesel feels reflecting back on this time in his life?

Supplemental Material

• Video: I’m Still Here: Diaries of Young People Who Lived during the Holocaust — 16:55–20:39
• Photos: Sighet by the Holocaust Encyclopedia (United States Holocaust Memorical Museum)