Elie’s views about life are changed due to the Holocaust and you could see those changes happen in the book. Elie at the beginning of the book is a normal child, but is obsessed with his religion. Soon, things change as the Holocaust and him being in concentration camps changes his views and perceptions on life. At the beginning of the story Elie is like, “Moshe the Beadle...talked to me for long hours of the revelations and mysteries of the cabbala. We would read together, ten times over the same pages of the Zohar. Not to learn it by heart, but to extract the divine essence from it.” Then when Elie life is changed by the Holocaust his view on religion changes, “For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless his name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. Wear had I to thank Him for?” Elie at the beginning of the book is very different from the Elie at the end of the book. At the beginning of the book Elie is very interested in his religion. He asks his father to find him a master so he could study the cabbala. Eli instead finds a man named Moshe the Beadle who teaches him about the religion and the meanings of his religion. Soon, everything would change. One day out of the blue the Hungarian police expelled all the foreign Jews out of Sighet, Elie’s hometown. One of the foreign Jews was Moshe the Beadle. They were crammed into cattle trains and sent somewhere but the Jews of Sighet and Elie didn’t know where they were going. Soon they would know that they were killed. Moshe the Beadle had returned to Sighet to give them a message. The was to get out of Sighet so they could be safe, but no one believed him and soon he left Sighet never to be seen again. Soon after the Nazi would storm into Romania were Sighet was located. The Nazi’s would soon be in Sighet. The Nazi’s made to Sighet and the first thing they did was sent the Jews of Sighet into concentration camps. Elie and his family were sent to Auschwitz. Elie’s mother and sisters died there, though Elie didn’t know it at the time. Elie and his father were almost killed on their first day there. Within hours of being in Auschwitz Elie changed. He no longer wanted to study the cabbala, but instead in the art of survival. Elie wanted to live through Auschwitz and beyond to meet his family once again.
This isn’t the only example of Elie changing as a person, as you see in the memoir Elie changes as a person everyday. Elie not only changes religiously but changes a person and a human being. “I had to stay at Buchenwald until April eleventh. I have nothing to say of my life during this period. It no longer mattered. After my father’s death, nothing could touch me any more . . . I spent my days in a state of total idleness. And I had but one desire-to eat. I no longer thought of my father or of my mother. From time to time I would dream of a drop of soup, of an extra ration of soup.” At this point of the memoir the book is almost over, but it shows a side of Elie nobody has seen before. Elie doesn’t care about anybody but himself. Before Elie would care about his father. Before the Holocaust he would care about his studies and his family, but once his father dies he has a whole new mindset. Elie only cares about survival. He doesn’t care to think about his mother or his father but only of himself and his ration of bread and soup. Until this point of the story there wasn't really any sure fire way this would happen to Elie. Earlier, when his father was dying the head of his block in Buchenwald told him that his father was going to die and that Elie should help himself to his father’s rations. Still though Elie couldn't do that to his father. Instead of taking his rations he went to fetch some soup for his old father. Now Elie has changed. He doesn’t remember his old self. He doesn’t remember his life before. He doesn’t even remember his family before. He only remembers about his ration of bread and soup, and if he is lucky he could get some extra. Elie has transformed into a nice, young boy who is interested in religion into a emotionless teen who only cares about himself and what he wants.
