d but is also uncertain about the relationship of his entire people to the rest of the world. He questions everything that in the past has provided some sense of stability--the community, the family, and God as well. Yet, as all the verities seem to be deserting him, the young man clings to the one thing over which he believes he has control and can indeed assert his identity--the covenant he has with his father.
Life in the ghetto has been tense but has also been bearable until the policy changes and Jewish people start disappearing. At first, the people try to ignore the warnings and ignore those who suggest that something is happening. Men like Moshe the Beadle seem to understand more, or perhaps they are just willing to say what other people fear to recognize. Elie's faith is destroyed by the horrors he faces and by the growing realization that God is allowing these terrible things to happen: "Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever" (Wiesel 32). The boy's story reiterates that all that transpires here may never be understood as we would like. What the boy's friend Moshe the Beadle tells him is important in this regard:
"Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating. "That is the true dialogue. Man questions and God answers. But we don't understand His answers. . ." (Wiesel 2).
The young man has no real idea of what the Final Solution is supposed to mean, but he suffers from its effects as his entire family is eliminated. The story begins in 1941, and the family manages to survive without being taken to a camp until nearly the end of the war. During those years, though, there were many signs of what was taking
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