Question

It is unbelievable how fast people adapt. It hurts to admit it, but within hours of first breathing the cattle car’s nauseating air, we began to feel at home. “Home” was the edge of the wooden plank I sat on as I dreamed of the Jewish exiles of antiquity and the Middle Ages. More curious than afraid, I thought of myself as their brother. Mixed into my sadness there was undeniable excitement, for we were living a historic event, a historic adventure.

— All Rivers Run to the Sea, Elie Wiesel

Recall that Wiesel was a teenager when he was deported to Auschwitz. How does that point of view add to the power of this passage?

It helps express the horrors of the concentration camps.

It gives objective explanations of a teenager’s response to the Holocaust.

It shows that Wiesel was too young to comprehend what was happening at the time.

It shows that teenagers will relate events to things they learned in school.

Answer 1

It helps express the horrors of the concentration camps.

As a teenager Wiesel’s voice combines innocence, naivety, and dawning understanding; that contrast between youth and the brutality he faces makes the scene more poignant and powerful.