"Night," by Elie Wiesel and "Enemies: A Love Story," by Isaac Bashevis Singer, are two books that tell the story of two men that have gone through the Holocaust. "Night" is the biographical story of Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor. Elie discusses the struggle to survive in the concentration camps with his father. "Enemies: A Love Story," is a fictional story about a holocaust survivor named Herman Broder and his life after he survived the Holocaust. Both Elie and Herman have gone through traumatic events during the Holocaust but the events differentiate from each other, both have differences in personality, and both have differences in the decision to discuss the Holocaust. .
Even though Wiesel and Broder both suffered in the Holocaust, Wiesel's experience was the most emotionally disturbing. Wiesel, after being separated from his mother and sister (Wiesel 29), was almost killed along with his father in the crematorium (34). Along, with almost being killed, Wiesel has suffered from severe beatings from The Kapos to a point where he is used to them (36), he has witnessed a son beat his father to death over a piece of crust (101), and has watched the execution of a little boy (64). On the other hand, Broder was never taken to the ghetto or forced to do labor in the concentration camps as shown in the following quote. "Herman had hidden himself first in Tzivkev, then at Yadwiga's in Lipsk, and so avoided the forced labor of both ghetto and concentration camp"" (Singer 31). .
Throughout both stories, both Broder's and Wiesel true characters are shown as they fight to survive through the holocaust.
A terrible thought crossed my mind: What If he wanted to be rid of his father? He had felt his father growing weaker and believing that the end was near, had thought by this separation to free himself of a burden that could diminish his own chance for survival, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed.