In Elie Wiesel's novel, Night, Idek,
the Kapo ("a prisoner put in charge of a barracks"), beats both Elie and his father,
Shlomo.
On the first occasion, Elie is working in the
warehouse, and he happens to draw the notice of a furious Idek who begins to beat
him.
...I
happened to cross [Idek's] path. He threw himself on me like a wild beast, beating me in
the chest, on my head, throwing me to the ground and picking me up again, crushing me
with ever more violent blows, until I was covered in
blood.
As Idek ferociously
beats him, Elie bites his lips so that no sound of pain will come from his mouth. Idek,
getting no response, seems displeased—as if Elie is being defiant because he does not
cry out. And so Idek continues to pound on Elie harder and harder. Seeming to have
exhausted his fury, he calmly sends Elie back to work as if nothing had happened. Elie
had done nothing to aggravate Idek, but was simply in the wrong place at the wrong
time.
Another time, while Elie's work group is working
under the direction of some German soldiers, an "on-edge" Idek once again loses control,
however instead of going after Elie, this time he turns his attention to Elie's father.
Rather than using his fists, he beats the older man with an iron
bar.
At first,
my father simply doubled over under the blows, but then he seemed to break in two like
an old tree struck by
lightning.
Once again, it
would seem that Idek is the problem: Elie's father had done nothing
but find himself unfortunate enough to draw Idek's attention—and wrath—down on him
simply by being there at that moment in time. Strangely, though, even while Elie has
experienced Idek's unwarranted rage himself, Elie does not blame the
Kapo, but his father instead.
Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath? That
was what life in a concentration camp had made of
me...
Elie and his father are
both beaten for no reason. In this way the beatings are the same. What is different is
that, besides the fact that Idek beats Elie with his hands and Elie's father is beaten
with an iron bar, Elie knows he was not to blame for being beaten—but he cannot be
sympathetic when the same thing happens to his father. Perhaps it is the pain and
humiliation of not being able to do anything, but Elie displaces
his anger and unfairly blames his father. It's as if he expected, unfairly, that his
father find a way to be invisible. At the same time, however, Elie
is aware of how wrong he is, and recognizes that the horrors of the concentration camp
continue to change him and there is nothing he can do to stop it—and still
survive.
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