Night

Chapters 1-2

Reading Check

1. Kabbalism, or Jewish mysticism (Chapter 1)

2. He warns them about the atrocities of war that he experienced firsthand. (Chapter 1)

3. An area of a city where people of a certain religion are forced to live without access to the surrounding world (Chapter 1)

4. They eat their traditional Friday night dinner. (Chapter 1)

5. Auschwitz-Birkenau (Chapter 2)

Short Answer

1. Moishe the Beadle is a poor custodian of the Jewish temple. Wiesel and Moishe study the Zohar (the book of Kabbalism) together. He is well liked compared to other needy people because he is quiet and does not bother the townspeople. (Chapter 1)

2. At first, the Nazis seem polite and not harmful to the Jewish village’s way of life. However, the Nazis soon change their policies, imposing house arrest, banning Jewish people from owning gold, enforcing edicts that ban travel and require Jews to wear the gold star, and finally establishing ghettos. (Chapter 1)

3. She is a woman from Wiesel’s community who was separated from her husband and two older children. As a result, she suffers from mental health problems. One night, she hallucinates a large fire outside the transport car and screams. Other people in the car try to control her and calm her down, but she persists. (Chapter 2)

Chapters 3-4

Reading Check

1. “Men to the left! Women to the right!” (Chapter 3)

2. They meet “gypsies,” or Roma people. (Chapter 3)

3. Arbeit Macht Frei (“Work Is Liberty”) (Chapter 3)

4. He learns that many guards were involved in sex trafficking the inmate children. (Chapter 4)

5. He asks to stay with his father. (Chapter 4)

Short Answer

1. It is better not to draw attention to oneself because the sturdier inmates can be drafted to work in horrific circumstances, such as throwing corpses into the crematoriums. (Chapter 3)

2. This man oversees their new barracks in Auschwitz. He provides information about their new living situation, as well as inspirational words about not losing hope. They are notable for Wiesel because they are “the first human words” he has heard. (Chapter 3)

3. Wiesel and his father stay in Auschwitz for three weeks. They have a routine of eating and sleeping, with no other activities. At the end of this time, they are sent to a new camp called Buna. (Chapter 3)

4. He is summoned to the dentist because he has a gold crown that the guards want extracted. Although he avoids the dentist by feigning sickness, he eventually loses the gold crown to another inmate who forces him to give it up. (Chapter 4)

5. Although Wiesel sees many executions, he is particularly bothered by the hanging of a small child. The child is hanged after the Kommando he serves is found with stolen weapons. During the hanging, the child does not immediately die. While the other executions did not much affect his appetite, after this hanging, the soup tastes “of corpses.” (Chapter 4)

Chapters 5-6

Reading Check

1. His foot has swollen from the cold. (Chapter 5)

2. Hitler (Chapter 5)

3. They hear that the Red Army (the Russians) are coming. (Chapter 5)

4. Juliek, a Polish violinist, plays part of Beethoven violin concerto. (Chapter 6)

Short Answer

1. During previous Rosh Hashanah celebrations, Wiesel was “dominated” by the prayers he felt he needed to provide for God. However, this year, he feels changed; now he feels that he is stronger than God because he questions why God would bring suffering to his people. (Chapter 5)

2. Wiesel and his father now live in separate barracks. During this selection, Wiesel’s number is not written down for him to be taken out and killed; however, his father’s number is recorded. His father believes he will die and tries to bequeath Wiesel a spoon and a knife. Luckily, his father passes the second selection, and he survives. (Chapter 5)

3. The inmates from Buna run through the snow for hours. Eventually they stop at an abandoned village. Although the men are exhausted and hungry, Wiesel’s father reminds him not to fall asleep, because most men who fall asleep never wake up. (Chapter 6)

Chapters 7-9

Reading Check

1. The corpses of those who die on the journey (Chapter 7)

2. Death (Chapter 8)

3. Food (Chapter 9)

4. The SS have left, and American troops arrive. (Chapter 9)

5. A corpse (Chapter 9)

Short Answer

1. As passersby throw bread into the train cars, the inmates begin to fight each other for the crumbs. A man tries to sneak away from the crowd with some bread, but his son finds him and kills him for the crumbs. Soon, the other inmates see this and kill the son for the same bread. (Chapter 7)

2. Wiesel’s father weakens throughout Chapter 8. He is unable to move, and the doctors refuse to help him. His bunkmates mock him because he must relieve himself in the bed. (Chapter 8)