18 pages • 36 minutes read
Elie WieselNever Shall I Forget
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1958A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Silence
The words “silent” and “silence” appear twice in the poem and serve as a motif that underscores the larger theme of Silence and Helplessness. The “silent sky” (Line 5) and the “nocturnal silence” (Line 7) symbolize indifference or an absence of help. They represent the lack of concern for Wiesel and the Nazis’ victims. As far as he could tell, no one was talking about their horrible situation, and no one was doing anything to alleviate it. The “sky” (Line 5) extended throughout the universe, and the universe was silent. Night—the “nocturnal” (Line 7)—doubles down on the symbolism of silence. There was no figurative light, as no one was coming to help them. Wiesel suffered, and the world was mute: It was a constant sky of blackness.
The silence also relates to the prisoners. The Holocaust took away their humanity and left them mute and apathetic. As Wiesel states, “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and / turned my dreams to ashes” (Lines 9-10). Surrounded by indifference, Wiesel lost what he once cared about and became a symbol of stony emptiness.
Night
Night supports the symbolism behind silence, but it also represents a lack of light, justice, and goodness. There is no day in Wiesel’s life—sunshine and any rays of hope are gone. Wiesel declares, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long / night seven times sealed” (Lines 1-2). Wiesel is locked in another world where compassion doesn’t exist. Instead, there are burning children and the destruction of Wiesel’s humanity. Living in an unceasing night, Wiesel can’t have dreams, a soul, or religion.
The night of the concentration camps crushed humanity, and it “deprived” Wiesel “for all eternity of the / desire to live” (Lines 7-8). In the poem, night is the absence of the things that make life worth living. As Wiesel writes in Night, “It was no longer possible to grasp anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had deserted us” (Wiesel, Elie. Night. Trans. Stella Rodway, Bantam Books, 1986, p. 34). Night stripped the prisoners of their dignity and human characteristics, and it forced them to confront a world where no laws protect their lives. The laws that were present were there to facilitate their deaths.
Religion
The motif of religion supports the three critical themes of the poem. It bolsters Trauma and Indelible Memories: The shock of the Holocaust pushed Wiesel, an observant Jew, to give up his God and faith; the horrors of the Holocaust obliterated his religious beliefs and made him speak flippantly of God. The motif then strengthens Death and Inhumanity: According to the Jewish faith, God created humans to serve Him. As a product of God, humans are sacred. In the Holocaust, humans were disposable, and Wiesel saw “the small faces of the children” turn into smoke (Line 4). As Wiesel puts it, such inhumanity and lack of care for human life “murdered [his] God” (Line 9).
In Night, Wiesel grapples with the question, “[W]hy should I bless Him? […] Because He had had thousands of children burned in His pits? Because He kept six crematories working night and day?” (64). According to this excerpt, the Nazi genocide became God’s will, and God was responsible for the crematories and fire pits (where the Nazis also burned bodies). By making God accountable, the motif links to Silence and Helplessness. God was silent about the Holocaust. He didn’t help Wiesel or the prisoners, so Wiesel found his faith in Him incredibly shaken.
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