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All But My Life Analysis

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All But My Life Analysis
The desire for power, fear, and self-preservation can cause people to change in ways one could not imagine. In the story, Night by Elie Wiesel, and Gerda Weissman Klein’s All But My Life, the authors share their tragic experiences from their times in Nazi concentration camps. In Addition, Klein’s All But My Life shows her experience in many different concentration camps for three years and how differently female inmates were treated than male. In Wiesel’s Night, he discusses his experience of being sent to Auschwitz along with his father for a year and how the tragedies he endured transformed his character. In Addition, Klein’s All But My Life shows her experience in many different concentration camps for three years and how differently female …show more content…
In Night, Wiesel speaks of the one inmate abandoning his father, who was growing tired during a march in order to increase his chance of survival, leading him to be a perpetrator. “What if he wanted to be rid of his father? He had felt his father growing weaker, and believing the end was near, had thought by this separation to free himself of a burden that could diminish his own chance for survival.” ( Wiesel 91) The quote explains to the reader that self-preservation had caused the Rabbi’s son to abandon his own father in increase his chance of survival, who eventually died. making him the perpetrator for his own death. This shows that self-preservation can cause unexpected events to occur. In Klein’s story, All But My Life, Gerda Klein describes when an inmate got shot by an SS Officer when she went to a milk can to see if there was anything left.“One girl spotted a milk can leaning against a tree. She ran out of line to see if there was any milk in it. An SS man grabbed her by the neck, forced her to her knees. I saw her turn, petrified, when he took the rifle from his shoulder. Mercy, Mercy! she pleaded. She threw her arms up as he fired.” (Klein 9-10) Even though the prisoners of the camps were on a death march, and could not get out of line, one inmate spotted a milk can, came out of line, ran toward it to see if there was any milk left in vain, and eventually got shot by an SS officer. just as the previous paragraph, the inmate made herself a perpetrator for her own death. This shows a sign of self-preservation. Wiesel himself also shows signs of self-preservation. In the story, he thinks that he would never abandon his father, but when he does lose his father, he feels as if a burden was lifted from his shoulders. “I woke up at dawn on January 29. On my father’s cot lay another sick person. They must have taken him away before day-break and taken him to the

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