(Note: Wiesel's book is divided into nine unnumbered segments. It will be easier for you to follow the discussion in these Notes if you number the segments in pencil before you begin reading.)
Near the close of 1941, twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel—son of a devout Romanian shopkeeper and brother to three girls, two older and one younger—recounts his avid pursuit of Hasidic Judaism through study of the Talmud and the cabbala. Lacking a mentor to guide his contemplation of religious mysticism, he turns to Moshe the Beadle, a very poor and pious loner who works as a handyman at the synagogue in Sighet. After other worshippers depart the synagogue following the evening service, Moshe shares private time with Elie. He wisely encourages the impressionable boy to pursue God through questions, but to expect no understanding of God's answers, which remain unsatisfied in the soul until death. Moshe insists that each seeker must rely on inborn traits that will open the way to comprehensible answers suited to the individual.
One day, without warning, Hungarian police arrest Moshe along with other foreigners and take them away aboard cattle cars. Elie weeps for the loss of his tutor. The citizens of Sighet accept exile as a natural burden of war and contend that the deportees are working in Galicia. Months later, Moshe returns to report the fate of the exiles—after they arrived in Poland, they boarded trucks bound for a forest, where they dug huge graves and were systematically machine-gunned. Their killers made sport of tossing babies into the air and using them for targets. After being shot in the leg, Moshe was assumed dead. Traumatized by the slaughter, he weeps as he retells the story. Elie and other villagers conclude that Moshe has lost his mind.
As 1942 and 1943 pass, the people in the village follow the war via London radio news. In the spring of 1944, the success of the Russian front seems to spell doom for the Germans. Knowing Hitler's fierce hatred for Jews, villagers doubt that Hitler can remain in power long enough to kill an entire race. Elie, however, pleads with his father to sell out and immigrate to Palestine; Chlomo insists that he is too old to begin again. News from Budapest warns that fascism is on the rise. Although a villager returns from the capital with accounts of anti-Semitism, optimism continues to prevail. A few days later, German army cars appear on Sighet's streets.
At first, polite German officers take up residence in private homes and live peaceably among Jews. Because synagogues are closed, worshippers pray at the homes of rabbis during Passover week. On the seventh day of the festival, Germans arrest Jewish leaders. Edicts force Jews to remain in their homes for three days and to relinquish gold and other valuables. A decree requires them to identify themselves by wearing a yellow cloth star, symbolic of the Star of David. To fearful Jews, Elie's father makes light of the strictures, particularly the yellow patch proclaiming their Jewish-ness. More anti-Semitic rules ban Jews from restaurants or cafes, trains, and synagogues. The law confines Jews to their residences after 6 P.M. and forces them to cover their windows and to stoke coal on military trains.
The Germans force Sighet's Jews into two ghettos bounded by barbed wire. The Wiesels live on Serpent Street in the larger settlement in the center of town and make room for relatives whom Germans have turned out of their homes. Optimistic and somewhat smug in their private enclave, the Jews attempt to normalize activities. The Saturday before Pentecost, Stern, a police officer, summons Elie's father to a council meeting. Pale and trembling, Wiesel returns near midnight to announce that they are all to be deported the next day; each person is allowed to take only a few personal items and some food. The president of the Jewish Council knows their destination but is not allowed to divulge it; rumors declare that they are headed for Hungarian brick factories.
Early Sunday morning, a friendly police inspector knocks at the window to warn the Wiesels of danger. By 4 A.M., families are preparing food for the journey. At 8 A.M., Hungarian police order Jews outside and strike out indiscriminately at old and young with police clubs and rifle butts. Within two hours, all Jews stand in the streets. By 1 P.M., the first convoys begin their march out of Sighet. All day Monday, Elie's exhausted family fasts. On Thesday, the Wiesels anticipate deportation. To their relief, they are forced to resettle in the small ghetto. Elie leads the way; his father weeps. The small ghetto is littered with possessions that the first deportees abandoned in turmoil. The Wiesels move into Elie's uncle's rooms for four nights. At dawn on Saturday, after a wretched Friday night packed in the synagogue with the remaining Jews, the Wiesels join the last deportees to board railway cattle cars—eighty to a car—and depart.
