Fight or Flight (Night *SPOILERS*)

Night, by Elie Wiesel, is the memior of a 15 year old jew during the holocaust. Elie has many horrific experiences during this book. He starves, is whipped, suffocates under a mass of bodies, and loses many people close to him, including his entire family. But the moment that I feel has the most impact on Elie is when he sees the son of Rabbi Eliahu run away from his father. He flees from the responsibility of keeping him alive. This gets Elie thinking about the impact his dad has on him, and sets the rest of the book in motion.

When Elie realizes that the Rabbi's son is running from him, as if he is a burden, he is horrified. Of course, he understands why he does it. Without his father keeping him down, this man's son has a greater chance of survival. In that moment though, Elie promises himself that he will never run from his father. He will choose fight over flight. This is easier said than done. When things get rougher, and hunger becomes unbearable, Elie's father no longer wants to hold on; he wants to disappear into death. But Elie makes him stay awake, and stay alive, actively keeping himself chained to this dying man. More time passes, and new challenges present themselves. Elie's father becomes ill with dysentery. Elie does everything he can to keep him alive: he gives him his own meager portions of soup in addition to the ones his father already had. Another prisoner sees this , and gives his opinion:

"Listen to me, kid. Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations..." Whether this man is right or not is irrelevant to Elie. He will not become like the Rabbi's son, even if he dreams of an extra bowl of soup at night. Eventually his dad dies, and Elie is finally free. At the same time, writing about this nearly 20 years later, will he ever truly be free?

Everything that Elie survives through is so horrific it is surreal. I think the parts of this book that touched me the most weren't the moments of suffering or pain, but when Elie showed his loss of morals. Like when he watches an old friend die and feels nothing. These are the things that scare me. Still, through all this, Elie is amazingly humane when it comes to his father. He feeds him and defends him. He keeps him alive when it would be so much easier to let him die. He never flees from his dad's side, even when every instinct tells him to. He stays and fights. Not that that eases his survivor's guilt in any way. But I hope he realizes that he did pass the test. He never gave into the temptation to run away when it truly mattered most.