"Of Unwanted Charity and Desired Death"

I chose this new title for Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night , chapter seven for it seems that it is these two things and feelings that are felt during the entire chapter. It seems as though these two things, charity and death, are things that Elie and those around him either want or do not. While reading the story of Elie and his father in the cattle cars, closer to the ending of the memoir, it is mentioned that charity towards the suffering captured, something many would suspect was wished and wanted by every one of them, was something that only brought along more pain. And death, an occurrence dreaded and feared by all, was begged for by those around Elie Wiesel. All of these things that most people would fear or try to go against were wished for by the suffering captured in Elie’s cattle car. The sights he saw were those not meant to ever be witnessed, and once they were it was hard to get them out of your mind. In this chapter normalcy, comfort, all happiness and fairness was taken away from Elie’s life even further with this trip to another camp in the prolonged, hellishly frigid temperatures of an unforgiving winter, led by unforgiving monsters.

This chapter title works with the events occurring in this chapter for, since Elie, his father, and many other prisoners were travelling in open cattle cars, during the winter, when they stopped onlookers would see their starved and close to death bodies and feel the need to help them somehow. So, some would throw bread to the sickly looking prisoners and Elie witnessed his fellow cart passengers rip and each other or scratch and kick in order to obtain that one piece of bread, one more mouthful to keep them going just a slight bit longer. Elie saw sons betraying their fathers and more horrifying and life-changing happenings. This reminded Elie of a time before all of this suffering, when he was travelling on a boat along with foreigners and a few other very poor and hungry residents. The other passengers would throw money at these residents in an act of charity and kindness. But, Elie pleaded for them all to stop, for he saw that all the money brought was violence and malice. The charity of money or food, something many would think was admirable, was unwanted by Elie, who knew that it would bring more harm than good. After all of that Elie then saw that many of the passengers of the cattle car were losing hope, all claiming that their lives would end right there. Even the strongest of them, Meir Katz, questioned why their captors would simply let them suffer like this, and not kill them already. He was wishing for something that was, to him and many other s most likely, much better than the pain they were going through at the time. They all desired the relief of death.

While Elie saw his fellow passengers fighting for the small scraps of food being thrown at them he remembers the similar incident he had when he was traveling on a boat. He writes, “‘Please,’ I begged, ‘don’t throw any more money in!’ ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘I like to give charity….’ “(Wiesel, 95). This is saying that Elie remembers a time in his past when the concerned also threw food and money to those they believed needed it. However, he wanted them to stop, for all it caused the hungry or poor to do was turn on each other and attack. This occurrence, which happened, too, on Elie’s cattle car, truly shed more light on the conditions the victims of prejudice had to go through. Things were so horrible, so unbearable that they savagely jumped at any piece of food, not hesitant to kill for it. The charity that was meant to only bring an easier and more comfortable time for the poor and mistreated only brought along more pain and sadness. Elie did not want this kind of “kindness”; their charity was very unwanted. In chapter seven Elie Wiesel also writes, “Meir Katz groaned: ‘Why don’t they shoot us all right away?’”(98). In this chapter the suffering that the Jewish people with Elie had to endure was so great that many simply gave up, wished that all of it would simply end with a quick and painless death. None of them, not even the most faithful of them, Meir Katz, desired to go on living in this way. The people around Elie wanted nothing but for all of this pain and torture to end. Many longed, they desired, to die. This chapter spoke of Elie's unwanted charity from those around him, and of the people who only wanted death in their lives of pain. So, "Of Unwanted Charity and Desired Death" is a suitable name for this chapter.