Ghettoization in Elie Wiesel's Night

            In his book Night, Elie Wiesel first describes the ghettos as "not a bad thing," which is surprising since we know all know what was coming next. Elie was placed in the larger of the two ghettos located in the town of Sighet which occupied four streets, one of which was Serpent Street, the street where Elie's house was. His family was lucky since most of the Jewish families were torn from their homes and towns and thrown onto the streets of the ghettos. Having been fortunate enough to keep their house, Elie's family took in any displaced relatives and life seemingly returned to normal. A Jewish Counsel was appointed to create the illusion of control by the Nazis, which worked. Elie stated "this was a good thing," unaware of the real purpose of these counsels. Even being separated by the barbed wire on the fences were seen as "not a bad thing." According to Elie, it seemed as if the Jewish community felt relieved that they no longer had to look at "all those hostile faces, endure those hate-filled stares" and being surrounded by other Jews seemed to take away the fear and anguish of being displaced. Even though the Nazis occasionally came and took people away to load coal into the military train, Elie describes the atmosphere in the ghetto as "peaceful and reassuring." Although this was mostly because the entire ghetto lived believing the fantasy that they would remain in the ghetto until the war ended and they were saved by the "Red Army." This all continued until about two weeks before the Shavuot.
             Two weeks prior to the Shavuot came the news that the ghetto was to be liquidated. They were told that the "transports" would arrive the next day; which, in light of everything we know, was a lot of time considering most ghettos were told that they had all but ten minutes to pack their belongings and line up outside their houses.