Doubting the Inevitable

In the book Night by Ellie Wiesel, the people in the town that Ellie grew up and lived in, reacted very to the Nazi's in a way that surprised me.  I thought that they would act very scared from the start.  But what I expected was far from what really happened in the book.  I think that this is very interesting and I will be spending my last blog post on Night talking about this.


I was very surprised that the people of the small town in Transylvania, where the author of this book grew up, didn't get scared and worried when they heard about the Nazi Party rise to power in Germany.  They didn't seem at all worried about this even though they were well aware of the Nazi's very Anti-Semitic views.  They had the reaction that they had no need to worry because Hitler and the Nazis weren't interested in coming into Transylvania.  They didn't think that they would bother them.  I think that this makes somewhat sense.  They most likely thought that Hitler was only interested in countries such as Poland and England, but not very tiny ones such as Transylvania.  I also think that the people of Wiesel's town were trying to make themselves feel better about the situation.  They were doubting that the Nazis would come to them so they could go about their lives without the need to worry.  I think that they must have been even a little worried inside even if they chose not to show it.


What made me even more surprised was that even when the Nazi's entered their town, they didn't begin to worry.  The people in the town acted as if everything was normal even though Nazi officers were staying in the homes of local residents and Nazi flags were hung throughout.  People who were part of a group that believed that killing every last Jew on the earth would solve all of their problems were right on their doorstep and the almost completely Jewish town in Transylvania kept on going as if everything was just fine.  This really confused me because I can understand not worry about them when their hundreds of miles away, but when they are literally right in the town where they are living I can't understand why there isn't panic.  Doubting the inevitable can only take people so far.  When the thing that you are doubting is right among you it is time to take action or flee instead of continuing to doubt and go along with your lives as if everything is completely normal.


I was very confused at why the people in this small, predominantly Jewish town in the middle of Transylvania didn't react to the Nazis rise to power with panic.  And I was surprised further more when they continued to act as if everything was fine once the Nazis took control of the Transylvanian government and entered their town.  I wonder if people would react that way if something similar were to happen.  I think that people these days in America would completely freak out.  We are already so paranoid while there are no immediate threats to us at the moment.  I can't even imagine the chaos that would occur if there was an immediate threat to us that was like the threat that the Nazis had to European Jews during the Holocaust.