First of all, Mr. Weber had, for the most part been brainwashed in a way, though it was more trickery than anything.  The SS officer had been told of greater equality, better economy, and dozens of other artificial promises.  Adolf Hitler, Mr. Weber’s leader, had established these ideas, and then slowly he drove more and more ideas into his head.  Thus brainwashing, this is stated in The Wave, by Todd Strasser. It says, “You traded your freedom for what you said was equality. But you turned your equality into superiority over non-Wave members.” This is showing how the students had given up their own freedom, so that they could become part of the group…but then the power they had became to overwhelming, and they became “better” than anyone else.  This quote is a perfect example of how trickery had taken hold so easily on Mr. Weber.  Another such instance is when Mr. Ross the student’s teacher started “The Wave”, he did so by making the things they did feel like the norm, and eventually it became a thing of power. If you were in The Wave you instantly were the “better” person over another student like you whom wasn’t in The Wave.  In addition, an exemplary time in “The Wave” that had demonstrated this affect is when David, and Laurie, his girlfriend, had their little quarrel.  He followed her down the road, and then he started to argue with her about whether The Wave was a movement for the good of the people.  Laurie thought that it was a bad thing, because it got innocent people hurt, on the contrary David thought that The Wave brought about a good sense of order, and it didn’t cause problems but mend them.  So, in the end David shoved Laurie to the ground, and then it him that he didn’t mean to, and The Wave nearly made the decision for him.  These incidents prove that such large movements, tagged along by propaganda, can make the mind think differently than it should, not by the fault of the person being affected.

          In a second story, called Night, by Elie Wiesel, there are many occurrences where an officer does things he has no say in, like Mr. Weber. At one point, a boy named Meir saw his father with bread in his hand, after a walk across more than 100 miles in the snow.  He actually goes to him and knocked him to the ground and beat him to death, now keep in mind that this is his own father.  He killed his father because he didn’t want to die himself. This severe incident only occurred because of the extreme conditions, and that is precisely why Mr. Weber did should not be punished for the crimes that took place in Germany’s death camps…He probably, as an officer, was directly under strict watch by Hitler, therefore making it a “His life or mine?” kind of situation.  A second time that a person had no choice in an issue was in “Night”, when the men and women were forced to dig their own graves, only to be shot into by the Nazis.  The people did not want to dig their own graves, but they had to because when there are five plus SS guards armed with heavy machine guns, you just tend to listen…A third and final time a person in “Night” had to do something against their own will, do to extreme circumstances, was when the families had to witness a public hanging of someone in the camp.  A dentist, that was issued to commence in extracting gold fillings from the prisoners, had been caught hording some of them for himself.  The Nazi leaders saw to it that he be hung, and so he was hung, while masses of imprisoned Jews were called out to endure the gruesome spectacle.  The people of the camp had not chosen to watch a man die out of their own will, but by the fact that if they’d been caught, they would have been killed. In the case we are discussing today, Mr. Weber could have been forced by his own death or his family’s murder to participate in the mass killing of Jews in Germany.

          Clearly, this evidence of many forced killing, and brainwashing confirm how Alexander Weber could have been severely influenced, and not actually wanted to do the crimes he’d done. As you should now understand, Mr. Weber is an innocent man!

In Night, Wiesel recounts some of the attrocites of the halocaust, which he had experianced first hand. At an early age he wanted his father to move from his home town of Sighet in Transylvania, but his father was resistant to move. The Jews of Sighet heared news of the war, but it never bothered them. They were out of German reach--or so they thought...

There are many terrible things depicted in this book, for the most part it is not too bad. There are some parts however, in which you might have to stop reading for a moment. That is, if you have the picturing mind that I do when I read. Overall this is a very sad story, and the fact that it is true makes it worse. Reading this will open the eyes of many, for they will see how bad the world can be.

I recommend reading this book. I read it for a class, but I would definatly read it on my own. 

Steve Clay is trying to help Trent out by playing basketball with him. He asks Nick's mom if he and Trent can use Nick's new basketball court. Steve thinks that if Trent makes the school basketball team he will change and become a better person.

Late at night Nick can hear and see Steve and Trent playing basketball outside. As Nick sees Trent play basketball more and more he realizes that Trent is good at basketball. Nick also realizes that Steve was trying to help Trent.

After watching Trent play for a couple of nights, Nick asks Trent if he could play with him. As they play Nick then finds out that Trent's playing style is very similar to his own and realizes that Trent copies what he does. They both find out that the other person is very good and a friendship between them has started.

Nick and Trent tried out for the school basketball team. Both of them impressed the coach of the varsity team. Nick has the grades to make the team and Trent after studying hard passes all of his classes.

Scott accuses Trent of helping his brother Zack shoot an innocent person. Trent after the shooting happened told Nick what really happened. Nick knew that Trent was innocent and was defending him from the accusations.

Trent's brother runs away after the shooting. Trent tells Nick that his brother will call him when he finds a place and Trent will go to his brother. Nick tells Trent that he doesn't have to go with his brother and stay for the championship game.

On the day of the championship game for the school basketball team, Trent doesn't show up for the first part of the game. Before the fourth quarter started Trent finally shows up and the coach puts him in the game. Trent helps the team rally from being down to winning the game.

Thus he gathers together a few head of longhorn cattle and sets out for the unknown. He does not do this alone however; first he marries his sweetheart Lorna. Lorna is a middle class child, heavily protected before her marriage and lacking any understanding of the hardships of life. Besides she is also quite young. Suffice it to say that she bore the brunt of the hardships of crossing dessert land in a wagon quite worse than the others, as she is quite unused to such a life.

Lorna's naiveté often got on Benteen's nerves, while Benteen's hard attitude often got on hers. There was a lot of adventure on the way: days without water, when Lorna used her drinking water to water her roses; a near attack by American Indians where Benteen's bargaining skill saved the day; a night with a woman and her husband whom the land had been unkind to; even the death of some cowboys after which Lorna had to wear trousers and herd cattle. They finally passed through Dodge City and with more time arrived their destination.

When they arrived Benteen lay claim on a stretch of land as far as their eyes could see. Benteen was to spend the rest of his life defending this land and the cattle within it. With time Lorna had two children. One however, was killed by marauders. Benteen does not take this lying down, he gets his revenge and a street shootout ensues. Bull Giles, a friend of Lorna's gets paralyzed in this shootout. This incident was after Benteen met his long lost mother. With his astuteness and business sense, Benteen became a great success and the TripleC outfit the biggest and best in Montana.

The Calder name became a legend of its own. While all this success was going on Benteen and Lorna went through many tests of their live and became the better and stronger for it. The epilogue was a summary of how successful the Calder's had been: their range, which spread as far as the eyes could see was filled with cattle, they had a sensible son to carry out their legacy, they had friends to celebrate with and family to visit back in Texas, most of all, Lorna and Benteen Calder were still as much in love as they had been on their wedding night.

The deportation and incarceration of the Jewish people was a significant guide to the times attitudes towards other human beings. Since they were seen as inferior to other more "pure" races, it was permissible to degrade, beat and kill innocent people without consequence. When the Wiesel family was shipped off in cattle cars with their peers to the concentration camps, they knew nothing of what was to become of them. Further into the experience they learned what utter cruelty could be done to people, and how in the face of such evil there seemed that there could be no God. Their faith in humanity was challenged, and by simply reading about such experience mine was as well. It is hard to imagine that the actions displayed in the book and movies are real, it leaves a bitter taste of reality behind.

With the control the Kommondant and his staff has over so many people it was near impossible to retain any hope. However, several people provided enough instances of kindness to keep what sanity the prisoners had. Some provided simple necessities or even a few kind words from one human being to another, and it was enough to spark a degree of hope. The Kapo who wished the prisoners a good night; Jakob who took in a child; the Frenchwoman who spoke to Eliezer, they all did something that proved that there still was good in the world. Those little rays of goodness were enough to alleviate the sheer numbing comes across with the ghastliness of the time.

I was alternately sickened and inspired by the suffering of those locked away in those specially designed hells. Every experience I heard or read of simply dug a hook into me until I was so drawn into the brutality that it fascinated and disgusted me. On one side, such immorality severely challenged my perception of the potential people have to good and evil. I know that there are and have been terrible people in the world, and there always has been intolerance. To come into contact with actual accounts of such an appalling past as what we have seen opened my eyes open further and informed me of what has and can happen. The fascination involved with this unit comes from the interminable strength of the human spirit.

Witnessing the holocaust through people both fictional and real was enough to open my eyes further to the range of acts humankind is capable of. In the best of times it is hard to see the worst in people, and in the worst of times it is hard to see the best. The treatment of those in the camps, between staff and prisoners and between the prisoners themselves was enough to prove the scope of behavior people can have. Eliezer and his relationship with his father, the instinctual drive to live and the lies spread to generate hope were enough to prove the existence of what little good was there present. Seeing the narration of the dire times portrayed offered an insightful enough look that the entire spectrum of humanity was visible to scrutiny.

They air is now tainted by a slight smell which quickly becomes a fetid stench. The walls are still closing in and the air is heating up, making the stench almost too much to bear. Closer and closer, the wall advances upon me. My fear rises proportionately with the wall's advance. The air is becoming hotter and hotter. Sweat breaks out upon my brow, and claustrophobia starts its diabolical, inexorable advance within my mind. The walls are almost touching me now. I can feel the heat from them. It is white, freezing, red-hot, stinging, dull, razor sharp pain. It is so uncomfortable it is enjoyable. The claustrophobia and the stench are almost over-whelming now.

I try to breathe but I am underwater. Looking up, I see the surface. I quickly swim towards it, only to find it is covered with floating blocks of concrete. Beating futilely against them, I can sense impending danger behind me. Looking back, all I see is mud stirred up by a large creature. It is looking at me. I can feel its eyes upon me. They seem to bore into the back of my head. Beating against the concrete, I scream and yell, using up the last of the oxygen in my lungs. Defeated now, I hang, suspended in the water. Slowly, oh so slowly, I begin to sink towards the inky black morass below me. Finally, I have to breathe and, giving in to all inherent instincts, I fill my lungs with water/air. My eyes flick open. I'm lying in my bed, completely soaked in sweat, and puffing like a triathlon competitor who has just finished the race of his life. It was all a dream, I tell myself. Just a stupid dream. The dream that has been haunting me every night since I was ten years old...

Elie Wiesel wrote this book to share his experience of the Holocaust so that kids like me can learn about what really happened. His journey from his home, to the ghettos, to the concentration camps teaches us what happened. He believes that the Germans are nice at first, but then the sad truth comes out as he is herded into ghetto's then to a cattle car where he was transported to concentration camps. The first one he was transported to he lost his mother and sisters. He lived through some of the hardest times in history.

The main character that appears in the entire book is Elie. I liked Elie the most because I liked his attitude, the way he looked at every thing, and his drive to never give up or desert his father. I liked this because in that situation I would want to be like that. My favorite part of the book was when Elie woke his father up from sleeping in the snow. I felt like I was there, I had a real connection with that moment. In my opinion that part of the book was very detailed. The scene just came to me and I felt like I was walking right beside him watching the events unfold. I liked the detail he used and the dialogue that the SS had. He didn't edit or change it in his book, he told us the truth and that made me like and understand the book even more.

The setting of Night is totally different from our world today, and I hope I never have to live through it. This book could prevent another semi-successful genocide. It could teach people the outcome of a genocide and see what would happen from the victims point of view. There would be many more Jews alive today, had it not been for Hitler and the Nazi's. I don't believe that that this book could be improved because it was what he truly saw.

I think Night is mainly directed towards teenagers, people who enjoy learning about history, people who like suspense novels, and people who like non-fiction books. Night is the sick truth of what happened in the Holocaust. This is by far one of my favorite books. Does his father and he make it out alive? Find out for yourself.

In the book Elie Wiesel writes (p.24), "There are 80 of you in the car, the German officer added, if any one of you goes missing, you will all be shot like dogs." In this quote Elie Wiesel shows just how ruthless the Germans could be in their task of deporting the Jews, it also shows just how cruel the Germans were to their prisoners, they packed them into cattle cars 80 at a time and referred to them as "dogs". In referring to the Jews as dogs the Germans dehumanized the Jews by not treating them as human, but as animals.

Another passage where we see dehumanization was when on p. 37 Elie Wiesel writes on how the first concentration camp changed the prisoners, "In a few seconds, we had ceased to be men." This quote shows just how bad the Jews were treated at the first camp they arrived to. After arrival they were sorted, stripped, and forced to run from barrack to barrack, after this process had been going on a wile Wiesel writes that they had "ceased to be men". This is just one of the many ways that the Germans dehumanized the Jews in this book. This passage shows dehumanization because the Germans took away the prisoners human qualities, the Jews were forced to run like animals under the Germans control.

In another quote Elie Wiesel describes their German tent leader, (p.48) "Our tent leader was a German. An assassin's face, fleshy lips, and hands that resembled a wolf's paws." This quote is describing how the dehumanization affected both the Jews and the Germans. In the quote the leader of the tent in Buna is described with an assassin's face and hands like a wolf this could mean that he is both deadly like a wolf or an assassin, this is an example of how dehumanization affected the guards, in an earlier quote (p.28) the guards surrounded the prisoners "like wolves".