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“Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.” – Elie Wiesel. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, it is about his encounters, thoughts, feelings, and experiences he endured alongside his father and peers when being sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp. This book touches on many topics including the Nazis ability to dehumanize people based on their religion recalling his encounters with them and the monsters they are, reminding the reader to never let these people exist again. Elie Wiesel uses various emotions to build empathy around the Holocaust, so we can learn and never forget what happened.  As a reader, from the book we learn many lessons, such as never lose hope and don’t stay silent. The holocaust was inhumane occurrence that effected many Jewish people throughout Europe in the 1940’s. They were forced to do labor, killed, separated from their families, and witnessed tragedies all because of their religious beliefs. The holocaust is one of the most brutal accounts in mankind’s history. Through an appeal to emotion, we build empathy toward those who experience horror.

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The titanic was a tragic event that ended thousands of lives. When people boarded that ship, they didn’t know that some of them they would never get off. On the night of April 14, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and from there disaster struck. The ship sank in less than three hours and with not enough lifeboats to carry all the passengers on board many went down with the ship or jumped in the water and died from hypothermia. I wondered why there wasn’t enough lifeboats for all the people on the boat that day. When I first saw this painting, I could imagine the panic these people were enduring, because of horror on their faces and their anxious movements frozen in time.

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As they were on the train on their way to Auschwitz, nobody had any idea what was going on. Elie and the people from his town had no idea what was going to happen. As they rode to the concentration camp there was a woman slowly losing her mind. She would scream and scream, and everyone was starting to get sick of her.

There was a moment of panic. Who had screamed? It was Mrs. Schächter. Standing in the middle of the car, in the faint light filtering through the windows, she looked like a withered tree in a field of wheat. She was howling, pointing through the window: "Look! Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on

me!” (Wiesel 25)

In this moment I felt her terror and I felt a lot of sympathy for the woman, because in a way she was right, and I think that if everyone knew what was going to happen once, they got off that train they would have had more sympathy for her too. Those people didn’t know it but soon they would feel the panic and terror that woman was enduring. In this image, you can see the panic from the amount of people going in all different directions, the way they hold their children and the focused look on their faces.

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The emotion of exhaustion is portrayed many times throughout Night and is shown very clearly in this image. When Elie and the other prisoners had to run to the other concentration camp it was an excruciating journey for them. “’don’t think, don’t stop, run!’ Near me, men were collapsing into dirty snow. Gunshots…I had no right to let myself die… When the SS were tired, they were replaced. But no one replaced us” (Wiesel 86-87). Elie and the other prisoners were basically running for their lives, they weren’t just exhausted physically but also emotionally, when would this hell on earth end for them? This photo illustrates this scene from the book. When seeing this image, it creates empathy because we want to help and stop the actions of the officer and how he treats the prisoners, but we can’t. As this is happening the look on the other people’s faces is devastating and others just look forward like this is normalized.

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During the 1950s-1960s there was the civil rights movement. This photo shows many people coming together to protest for their rights. People of color were treated unfairly especially in the south; they were segregated almost everywhere, schools, parks, bathrooms and even water fountains. They couldn’t even vote. Obviously, this is a very serious topic to compare to and hard to put yourself in these people’s shoes, but everyone has moments where they feel like an outcast in a place that should be very welcoming, like a workplace, a school, or hanging out with your friends. America has come a long way since this photo and rightfully, now people of color have access to the rights they were protesting for. But I feel, and many others think, we still have a long way to go.

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9/11 was a horrific event in US history. The image illustrates one of the twin towers up in smoke from a plane striking it, and another plane flying right into the second tower, a terrorist attack. Soon after this picture was taken, the towers would crumble, and debris would spill down the streets trapping everyone from the building and the streets under it. When looking at this image I wondered how scared everyone must have been, the people in the building, the people watching from far away wondering what would happen next. This image highlights the importance of memory because every year on 9/11 the US commemorates this tragic event. Lights are in the sky of New York City, where the towers would have stood, and names are written into the statues that stand as the memorial. We mourn those who lost their lives that day. We feel for those who were frightened that day.

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Covid took everyone by surprise, even doctors. When people were coming down with a sickness nobody really knew anything about, everyone stayed at home, safe. But not doctors, nurses, and those in the medical field. They risked their health every day to take care of those who were coming down with Covid. As you can see from this image, the doctor takes a break on the floor geared up to save lives, exhausted. We feel empathy towards this woman because we all know what it’s like to be exhausted and scared. Since this photo has been taken, we have all gone back to basically normal lives and doctors don’t have to work endless hours trying to treat a new virus. There is now a vaccine and we have gained the knowledge of how to support each other in difficult times. This highlights the importance of never losing hope, one of the themes in Night, because the doctors kept hope even when the world had no idea what was going on.

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On February 6, 2023, there were terrible earthquakes that hit Turkey, holding 6.3 points on the Richter scale. According to Why the Turkey-Syria Earthquakes Were So Destructive, “The earthquakes claimed the lives of more than 46,000 people and collapsed hundreds of thousands of buildings throughout the region, leaving at least 2 million survivors without a home and in need of humanitarian aid.” When I first saw this image from the SBS website it first looked like an exhausted man surrounded by collapsed buildings, but when I got a closer look, I realized he is holding somebody’s hand. This man is giving the person under the debris hope that they will be rescued, and they will survive. This metaphorically represents Night because the man represents Ellie’s hope that he held onto as he was being crushed by the debris, which represents all the things he went through while being in Auschwitz. This created empathy because when looking at this image it stimulates you to wonder what you would do in this situation and how we would sustain hope in ourselves and others.

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This image is one of the many examples of animal abuse, animal abuse is sadly a very common thing around the world. Examples of animal abuse are people not feeding their animals enough, abandonment, lack of cleanliness and even animal testing for big companies. My heart shattered as I looked at this image. The dog’s ribs are sticking out with cuts all over its face and the eyes look exhausted. When I saw this, I wondered how people like this exist and what we can do to stop these things from happening. This image pushed me to research more into animal abuse and I found that its even common in zoos. According to, Zoos: The Life of Animals in Captivity, “Animals suffer in zoos. They get depressed, psychologically disturbed, frustrated, they harm each other, become ill, go hungry, and are forced to endure extreme and unnatural temperatures. These animals cannot live as they would wish to live.” This image created empathy because the dogs’ eyes and injuries tell a story and remind us to advocate against these situations.

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As this image is depicted, you see a little boy scavenging for food in a built-up pile of trash on the side of the road. People across the world struggle with feeding themselves and their families every day. According to Around 9, a child dies from hunger every ten seconds. When I came across this photo on the United Methodist News Service website, I thought it was unfair, it’s unfair that I don’t have to wonder when my next meal is or worry about going hungry for days but this little boy who looks likes he’s at the oldest 6 must eat garbage just to get by. After seeing this photo, we can understand how hungry the child is, and learn to stop saying silent. The goal for is to end world hunger by 2030. If we speak up, spread awareness, and donate, nobody will worry when their next meal is.

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Russia and Ukraine are currently in the middle of a destructive war, damaging Ukraine harshly. Russia has invaded their country and has caused thousands of deaths on both sides. People are losing friends, family, homes, pets and much more. This image creates a feeling of agony, the woman in this photo is walking up to somebody to embrace them while she sobs. In the background it’s her home, that was destroyed by Russian bombs. This photo creates empathy, those who see it know what this woman must be feeling as she looks around at her home, now torn to pieces making those who see it want to help the woman by donating or spreading awareness. The message from Night, to never lose hope can help this woman stay strong in this difficult time.

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Compared to writing a traditional essay, composing a visual essay required a lot of outside research which I really enjoyed. It allowed me to use my creativity, in what to write about and events I think are important to history. Instead of following a set topic to write about I could expand around my interests. I liked how it’s separated into 10 short paragraphs rather than 4-5 long bodies. I learned a lot of new writing skills while making my visual essay, such as turning an image into words to tell its story and a skill I already knew, which was to stay with the theme. At first, writing the essay was difficult because I’ve never written something like this before. After developing an understanding of the concept of the essay, it made me feel like I had a lot more freedom writing and to talk about important events that happened that I’m passionate about. Writing the visual essay made me realize how Night’s themes still play a role in history and today’s world. As I depicted the images, I found myself always coming back to never losing hope, the importance of memory and not to stay silent, which are major concepts in the book. Overall, writing the visual essay was a different way of understanding why we read Night, to teach everyone the importance of remembering important events, even if they may be horrific.

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“The Story behind This Turkey Earthquake Photo That ‘Many Will Never Forget.’” SBS News, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-story-behind-this-turkey-earthquake-photo-that-many-will-never-forget/2ijedstvo. Accessed 1 Mar. 2023.

Lewis, Tisha. “Stafford Community Raises Money for 2 Dogs Rescued from Brutal Animal Cruelty.” FOX 5 DC, 2 Feb. 2022, https://www.fox5dc.com/news/stafford-community-raises-money-for-2-dogs-rescued-from-brutal-animal-cruelty.

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