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"My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others, then with that of his own kin. The Jewish community of Sighet held him in highest esteem; his advice on public and even private matters was frequently sought." (4)

This passage displays that the Jews of Sighet, if not the Jews of Hungary in general, valued knowledgable men with no emotions. They may have felt that his lack of displayed emotions meant that he would approach issues with a clear opinion unbiased by his personal feelings.

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This picture is of what looks to be a family or multiple families, with children spanning ages from very young to teenagers/preteens. The group of children are very bundled up and are all smiling joyfully. They appear to be in a town, as revealed by the buildings in the background which appear to be houses.
Family was an important aspect of Jewish culture. Many Jews would spend a lot of their free time with their families. Large families were also very common in Jewish culture.

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Prewar view of the main market square in the Transylvania town of Sighet, the birthplace of Elie Wiesel.

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Many Hungarian Jews in the 20th century lived in shtetls, which were small, tight knit Jewish communities.

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"They took me to Silage, in black ____, realizing they took ___ tried to ask the Kapo, the one who was in charge of us. Where is my mother? Where is my sister? Then she slapped me, said those words are not used here. Don't dare to ever mention. Introduction to Auschwitz."

The first question she asks the guards is about her family, praying that they are ok and wanting to see them, showing the importance of family in Jewish culture.

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In 1941, 10,441 Jews lived in Sighet. They made up roughly 37% of the town's population.

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Dorit Weiserová (artist) was 12 years old when she was deported to Auschwitz.

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This drawing depicts a large Jewish family gathering. The woman in the center appears to be the mother, and the man to the left seems to be the children's father. The family, dressed in fancy, colorful clothing, is sitting around a large table, most likely celebrating a traditional Jewish holiday. The table is covered in a nice, white tablecloth and appears to have gifts, treats, candles, coins, and the Star of David, implying that the family is celebrating a larger holiday like Rosh Hashanah or Hanukkah.

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Hungarian Jews being deported, their heads covered with hats and handkerchiefs.

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While younger Jews in eastern Europe tended to dress more modernly, older Jews dressed more traditionally. Men usually wore hats or caps on their heads and women modestly covered their heads with handkerchiefs or wigs.

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The majority of Jewish families were poor and only a few were wealthy. As a result, many Jewish children had no choice but to dropout of school early so they could get jobs and help provide for their families.

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Religious Orthodoxy and Hasidism predominated Eastern Europe in the early 20th century.

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How did Hungary React to German Occupation?

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How did Hungary React to German Occupation?

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Hungary wasn't occupied by the Nazis until 1944, five years after the war started. Despite deep-rooted anti-Semitism in Hungary, the War Refugee Board, via Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, organized the most extensive rescue effort in the entirety of the Holocaust dedicated to saving the Hungarian Jews.

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Yiddish was the traditional language of the Eastern European Jews. It was a combination of German and Hebrew and was spoken by the majority of Jews before the Holocaust.

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt19z393h?oauth_data=eyJlbWFpbCI6ImVmaXNjaGVyQHBvdG9tYWNzY2hvb2wub3JnIiwiaW5zdGl0dXRpb25JZHMiOlsiMzg5YjRjMDAtZTY4MC00YjdiLTk2ZGItYjZlYTEwNjFhOGUzIl19
http://www.porges.net/JewishHistoryOfHungary.html

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/sighet

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Learn about the history of Sighet, birthplace of Elie Wiesel. The Jewish population of Sighet was deported to Auschwitz in May 1944. Most of the deportees were gassed on arrival.

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A pile of victims' shoes who were gassed. 

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Shoes can tell us a lot about people's lives and occupations. Some of the most common occupations for Jews in pre-war Hungary were farmers, tailors, seamstresses, factory hands, accountants, teachers, and small-business owners. Since these jobs tended to be low-income, most Hungarian Jews were poor.

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In the 1930s, many Jews had been dismissed from their jobs. As music and acting was a large part Jewish culture, the Jewish Cultural Society provided opportunities for continued creative work to the hundreds of Jewish actors and musicians in Berlin.

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"The deportees were quickly forgotten." (6)

This sentence in Night is a response to the deportation of the foreign Hungarian Jews, the Jews living in Hungary who were not at that point able to gain citizenship. It seems that the foreign Jews were not entirely welcomed or accepted by the community, as, according to Wiesel, none of the other Jews seemed to care for very long about their deportation or where they were taken.

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The pile of the Hungarian Jews' belongings after their arrival at Auschwitz

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In 1933, members of the Nazi students' organizations raided libraries in hopes of burning all books deemed "un-German" in order to purify German culture and erase Jewish culture. They not only burned the stories of Jewish authors, but they burned any books that even mentioned Judaism.

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The novel, Night, was originally published in 1956 in Yiddish, as Yiddish was the language spoken by Elie Wiesel and his family in Sighet. Later, it was translated by Elie Wiesel's wife, Marion Wiesel, to English.

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Elie's parents were small business owners:

"My parents ran a store. Hilda and Bea helped with the work. As for me, my place was in the house of study, or so they said." (4)

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"An SS came towards us wielding a club. He commanded:
'Men to the left! Women to the right!'
Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother... I didn't know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever." (29)

Elie describes the moment his family was separated forever. It happened so quickly that he didn't even comprehend that this was happening, showing that the Nazis had the power to tear apart families with just a simple command.

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"As a rule, our towns people, while they did help the needy, did not particularly like them." (3)

Wiesel is referring to the culture of the shtetl he grew up in, located in Sighet. Despite fulfilling their duty in helping those less fortunate, Wiesel reveals that the inhabitants of his town had a very classist attitude and looked down on the poor.