Night Unit Test Study Guide
Be able to identify and discuss the contributions of the following characters to the story.
Elie Wiesel
Dr. Mengele
Shlomo
Idek
“Sad-eyed” pipel
Moishe the Beadle
Juliek
Franek
Akiba Drumer
Tzipora Madame Schacter
Stein
Zalman
Be able to define the following terms:
Anti-semitism genocide
prejudice Holocaust annihilation Talmud Fascism Kabbalah
Kaddish
Be able to identify the following places & know the significant events that happened in each location:
Sighet, Transylvania

Auschwitz, Poland
Buna (Auschwitz)
Buchenwald, Germany
Birkenau, Poland
Know the years during which this story took place, what type of non-fiction piece it is, and in what “person” (first, third,
etc.) is it told.
Know and be able to identify examples of the following literary terms:
theme
foreshadowing irony simile metaphor symbolism diction setting mood tone genre narrator motif
Understand and be able to identify conflict (external & internal) conflict within the story:
man vs. man
man vs. nature
man vs. society
man vs. self
II. Background
1. What word means “sacrifice by fire” and was carried out by Nazi Germany toward European Jews between 1933 and 1945?
2. What word means ill-feeling or hatred toward Jews specifically?
3. What was the systematic state-sponsored persecution and murder of over 6,000,000 Jews by the Nazi regime?
4. What accounts for the fact that the rest of the world did not help the Jewish refugees?
5. Which groups, in addition to the Jews, did Hitler try to eliminate?
6. What did the sign over Auschwitz say in English?
III: Settings and Symbols from the Memoir
7. What was the name of the small town in Transylvania where Elie and his family live before they are deported to the concentration
camps?
8. What was the name of the first concentration camp to which the Jews from Elie's town are taken. Elie and his father spend three
weeks there before being relocated.
9. Where were Elie's mother and youngest sister exterminated?
10. What element of nature represented the indifference of the rest of the world as Elie and other Jews are lined up for roll call in
Sighet before being transported?
11. What was the name of the concentration camp where Elie's father dies? A Jewish resistance movement takes control of the
camp.
12. What was the symbol that the Germans made all Jews wear as identification as a Jew?
13. What was the form of identification that is engraved on Elie’s arm?
IV. Basic Plot
14. What was the setting (time and place) for the first section of the book?
15. Why is Elie Wiesel’s memoir titled Night? How is “night” used in the novel and what is this literary device called?
16. As Eliezer’s father is dying (and dies) at the end of the memoir, what thoughts and feelings does Elie experience?
17. What is “the test” that Elie said he had failed – comparing himself to Rabbi Eliahu’s son?
18. What was/were Elie's father's last word(s) before he died?
19. What do the liberated prisoners mainly think about after being freed?
20. Upon seeing himself for the first time since leaving Sighet, Elie described the image contemplating him from within the mirror as
looking like what?
21. What is the significance of this final image in the book?
IV. Literary Elements: Choose which literary element best fits.
22. Elie Wiesel’s story is written in the form of a/an…
23. In what point of view was the book Night written?
24. Madame Schatcher’s visions about fire are an example of what?
25. The reader may come away from reading night feeling a certain sadness for the horrors that befell the Jews involved in the
Holocaust. What is the term that applies to the feelings invoked in the reader by a literary work?
26. Whose death symbolized the initial loss of Elie’s faith?
27. The tone of Night is mostly one of
28. Why is the slogan over the gate at Auschwitz ironic?
29. When did the first American troops arrive at the camp?
* Be able to identify figurative language and literary techniques in passages from Night that will be included on the test (such as
the following examples).
30. Night explores three father-son relationships (Elie and Shlomo, Rabbi Eliahou and his son, and the father/son on the train
headed to Buchenwald). These relationships serve for Elie as reminders of his own relationship with his father. What is the term that
applies to the universal moral lesson/s and insight a reader can glean from the use of such explorations in literature?
31. What figurative language is contained in the following quote from Elie’s time at Auschwitz? “We continued to march…between
the barbed wire. At every step, white signs with black skulls looked down on us, including the inscription: ‘Warning! Danger of
Death!’ ” Elie realizes that this sign is what?
32. What figurative language is contained in the following quote? “One day, we returned from work and saw three gallows, three
black ravens.”