Night (memoir)
Buna

In or around August 1944 Eliezer and his father are transferred from Birkenau to the work camp at Monowitz (known as Buna or Auschwitz III), their lives reduced to the avoidance of violence and the search for food. Their only joy is when the Americans bomb the camp. God is not lost to Eliezer entirely. During the hanging of a child, which the camp is forced to watch, he hears someone ask: Where is God? Where is he? Not heavy enough for the weight of his body to break his neck, the boy dies slowly. Wiesel files past him, sees his tongue still pink and his eyes clear.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking: Where is God now?

And I heard a voice within me answer him:... Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows.

Fine writes that this is the central event in Night, a religious sacrifice—the binding of Isaac and crucifixion of Jesus —described by Alfred Kazin as the literal death of God. Afterwards the inmates celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, but Eliezer cannot take part: "Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled... How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces?... But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused."
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