"Overlooked Omens"

I chose “Overlooked Omens” as my title because I believe that this was one of the central themes of this chapter. Throughout the chapter Elie tells of all the little events and unusual occurrences that all of the Jews of Sighet should have taken as warning signs. Instead, they brushed all of these omens as if they meant nothing and everything would be fine. For example, Elie begins his story by describing life as good for the Jews of Sighet. The first sign that trouble was in store for the Jews was the expulsion of all foreign Jews from Sighet in the early 1940’s. Moshe the Beadle was among the many deportees and the only one who managed to escape and find his way back to Sighet. He told the horrifying stories of what he had seen where he was taken, the brutal slaughtering of Jews by the Gestapo that had been going on in the middle of the forest of Galicia, near Kolomaye. He told his stories to anyone who would listen, hoping that he could warn his fellow Jews of the trouble that awaited them. However, few Jews wanted to listen to his stories, and the ones who did refused to believe that what he told them was true. Even Elie admitted that he himself did not believe this man whom he once so greatly looked up to and respected. Moshe pleaded for them to listen to him, claiming that he did not want their pity. His only reason to live now, he believed, was to warn the others so he could help save them like he had been saved. This was the first of the many warnings that the Jews of Sighet were given but decided to completely ignore. They tried to focus on only the good news; they always kept hope that any day now the Russian front would come and the Nazis would be defeated. Even when they heard that German troops had entered Hungarian territory, the Jews of Sighet remained optimistic, saying that there was no way that German troops would bother coming all the way to where they lived. A friend of the Wiesels’, Berkovitz, plainly told them of the anti-Semitic acts that were occurring in Nazi-occupied Budapest and how serious and real the situation now was becoming, but the rest of the Jews just kept their optimistic heads held high. Three days later, however, there in the streets of Sighet were German army cars. Still the Jews tried to remain optimistic about the whole situation when clearly they knew it was too late and they should have taken action when they had the opportunity. In my opinion, the way Elie presents all of these incidents of threats, signs, and warnings in his memoir make it seem like these have great significance to him, possibly because if the others had taken them seriously, many of them could have been saved from deportation. I think Elie wishes that they all could have taken these warnings seriously and spared themselves from the concentration camps. The manner in which he writes about how the people responded to the omens is almost sarcastic and ironic, because the people were so positive when every danger they heard about ahead of time they would also be confronted with. They had their fair chances to escape because of these omens and warnings, but they blew their chances because they overlooked them.
Throughout this chapter Elie’s feelings on the Jews’ complete ignorance can be clearly seen. “The Germans were already in the town, the Fascists were already in power, the verdict had already been pronounced, yet the Jews of Sighet continued to smile.” (Wiesel 7) Here Elie is stating that at this point in time their fate had basically been set in stone already, that they were doomed and had officially been taken under Hitler’s wing. They knew deep inside that they were in great danger, yet they continued to keep their heads up and remain almost too positive in spirit. The Jews of Sighet wanted to believe that everything would be okay and nothing would change, so they tried to look past all of the omens that shouted the truth and refused to accept the reality of their situation. Elie clearly feels that should they not have overlooked these warnings, they could have saved themselves from the wrath of the Nazis. This seems to be the general point Elie is trying to make throughout this chapter, which is why I chose this quote to show why my title is suitable for this chapter.