Between Shades of Grey and Night Essay

Between Shades of Grey and Night Essay

By Matthew Breitman                        711

            Conditions during the Holocaust and the deportation of the Baltic Region were more than terrible. They were atrocious. People were starved, beat, and mutilated. Night, a book by Elie Wiesel is about his experience during the Holocaust. He writes about how he struggled to survive as he was famished, tired, and his family was dead. Between Shades of Grey is a book written by Ruta Sepetys about a teenage girl, Lina, and her family, as they were deported and separated from their father. They were forced to work, by the NKVD guards, who were the Soviet and secret police. They were hungry and treated awfully. Even though the two books are about two different events that took place around the same time, Lina and Wiesel, the main protagonists, went through similar and different conditions. Although they both suffered miserably.

            In Night, Elie Wiesel was whipped, starved, and was forced to run through the freezing cold. After Wiesel sees Idek (his Kapo, or prisoner assigned by the Nazi’s to supervise forced labor), lying with a half-naked girl, Wiesel breaks out laughing. Idek chokes him, and says he will be punished. He gathered a whole unit of prisoners for roll call. He brings up a box and tells Wiesel to lie on it. Wiesel says, “Then I was aware of nothing but the strokes of the whip. ‘One… Two…,’ he counted. He took his time between each stroke. Only the first ones really hurt me.” This part in the book, really shows how brutal the Nazi’s were. How they tried to be superior and how no one could defy them. How being disrespectful can result in twenty five strokes from a whip. Idek was a horrible person, and I believe he took much of his anger out on the Jews. He not only whipped Elie, but savagely beat him, and hit his father continuously with an iron bar. Since he was in power he felt he could do anything he wanted, including being a savage. If Wiesel was next to Idek, then he was surely in terrible conditions. Later in the story, as the Russians approach Buna, (the camp where Wiesel is being held), all prisoners are evacuated and are forced to run in the middle of winter, to a new camp called Buchenwald. As they are running, Wiesel says, “Our limbs numb with cold despite the running, our throats parched, famished, breathless, on we went.” The prisoners were tired, starving, but they just had to keep on running. Many people died because they were so weak, but the Nazi’s didn’t care. They made them keep jogging through snow in thin clothes. The prisoners were dying, but the Nazi’s thought of it as a test. Whoever makes it, is strong, and whoever doesn’t, fails. The conditions were abysmal. People were trampled and forced to sleep in the snow. Nazi’s didn’t blink an eye as many prisoners died. Elie Wiesel suffered horrendously because he was mistreated by being starved, whipped, and made run in winter.

            Lina Vilkas, the protagonist from Between Shades of Grey suffered as she was deported from Lithuania and put in labor camps. When Lina and the other prisoners said they wouldn’t sign papers, (documents that state that they will be arrested and have to stay in labor camps for 25 years), one NKVD officer named Komorov forced Lina and other people into a hole that they dug. He shot around them, and was shoving dirt onto them. Lina said, “More dirt crumbled above our heads. Komorov laughed wildly, kicking dirt onto our faces. Dirt covered my nose. I opened my mouth to breathe and choked on soil.” Even though they were not Nazi’s, The NKVD were just as evil. They could have killed someone by burying them alive. Even though he didn’t intend to kill them, he scared them. The NKVD were brutal, and like the Nazi’s in many ways. When they wanted something done, they would get it done. In this case, they wanted the people to sign the documents, so they buried them alive to make them scared and do so. But Lina, her mother, and many of the other people were persistent to make sure they did not sign the documents. Although the book was made up, I’m sure this happened to some people. As the people stand in line to go to the bathhouse Lina and all the other woman are forced to undress in front of male guards. As Lina finishes to undress, she says, “The guard grabbed my arms and threw them down to my sides. He looked me up and down and grinned. He reached out and groped my breast. I felt his ragged fingernails scratch my skin.” This to me, might be one of the most disturbing parts in the book. It’s just crazy how a grown man would sexually assault a fifteen year old girl. It is absolutely frightening. The NKVD though they had so much power so they thought it was ok to assault this teenager, who was completely helpless. The NKVD officers were basically Nazi’s but they just believed in different things. They treated their prisoners the same. There was also sexual assault going on during the Holocaust. And they both thought of themselves so highly and they thought they could do anything they wanted. The NKVD put a knife to a boy, and demanded that his mother had to sleep with the officers. And this was not only back then. People are sexually assaulted nowadays too. It’s terrible that sick men, believe they could do anything they want. Lina lived and suffered in terrible conditions, from being assaulted to being buried alive.

            Even though Wiesel wasn’t buried alive, and Lina wasn’t whipped, the two protagonists went through horrendous times. And the worst part is, it’s still happening today. Many kids, teens, and people in general are abused and sexually harassed. It’s been going on for a long time, and it was clearly shown during the Holocaust and deportation of Lithuanians and Estonians. Yes our society is improving, but there are still sick people who whip, and hurt their kids. And there are many people in this world who have been sexually assaulted as well. Prisoners being held by countries and groups such as the Taliban, are being tortured too. The conditions that Lina and Wiesel went through, were appalling, but some people have it worse. So we should be thankful, that we were not deported from our countries, or placed in concentration camps. But that we live an amazing life. And whenever you say, “I hate my life,” just think about what people like Elie Wiesel who at a teenager, was tortured, starved, and lost his entire family.