Night, Chapter 1 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Where is Chapter 1 of Night set?

   • Kolomay, a town over the border in Galicia
   • Budapest, the capital of wartime Hungary
   • Maria's village, where she offers shelter
   • Correct answer: Sighet, a little town in Transylvania

   The memoir opens in Sighet, "the little town in Transylvania" where Eliezer spent his childhood. Kolomay, in Galicia, is where Moishe witnesses the killings, and Budapest is the capital, not his hometown.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What position does Moishe the Beadle hold in Sighet?

   • Head of the Jewish community council
   • Correct answer: Caretaker of the Hasidic house of prayer
   • Teacher at the town's religious school
   • Owner of the shop where the family trades

   Moishe is the jack-of-all-trades in a Hasidic house of prayer, a shtibl, and a beadle tends such a house. He is poor, yet the Jews of Sighet are fond of him and his presence bothers no one.

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3. 3

   Question 3. Why is Moishe the Beadle deported from Sighet?

   • Correct answer: He was a foreigner, and foreign Jews were expelled
   • He was caught teaching Kabbalah to boys in secret
   • He publicly insulted a German officer in the street
   • He tried to cross the Hungarian border without papers

   The Hungarian police expel all foreign Jews from the town, and Moishe is among them. The expulsion has nothing to do with anything he did.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What does Moishe do after escaping the killings in the forest?

   • He goes on to Budapest to look for help
   • He joins a band of partisans fighting the Germans
   • Correct answer: He returns to Sighet to warn the Jews there
   • He stays on in Galicia, working, as rumored

   Wounded in the leg and left for dead, Moishe comes back to Sighet to describe his death to the town so that it might ready itself while there is still time.

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5. 5

   Question 5. How do the people of Sighet respond to Moishe's testimony?

   • They organize an escape across the border
   • They report him to the Hungarian police
   • Correct answer: They dismiss him as a madman seeking pity
   • They ask the council to verify his account

   People refuse to believe his tales and even to listen; some say he only wants their pity, others that he has gone mad. Even Eliezer does not believe him.

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6. 6

   Question 6. How do the German soldiers behave when they first arrive in Sighet?

   • They impose a curfew on their first evening
   • They arrest the entire Jewish council at once
   • They immediately seize Jewish homes and shops
   • Correct answer: They behave courteously, and the town relaxes

   Their initial politeness, including an officer billeted with a local family who brings his hostess chocolates, lulls the community. The optimists are jubilant: "Where is their famous cruelty?"

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7. 7

   Question 7. How does Eliezer's father respond when community leaders ask him about the yellow star?

   • Correct answer: He shrugs it off, saying the star is not lethal
   • He urges the family to sell everything and flee
   • He promises to have the council overturn it
   • He arranges for the family to hide in the country

   His view is that it is not all bleak, or perhaps he does not want to discourage the others; of the star he says, "It's not lethal."

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8. 8

   Question 8. How does Chapter 1 of Night end?

   • Moishe leads a small group out of Sighet at night
   • Correct answer: The family is sealed into a crowded cattle car
   • The family hides in a village outside the town
   • Eliezer is separated from his father in the ghetto

   After a night in the synagogue the family is marched to the station and packed eighty to a car, and the doors are sealed. Then the train pulls out: "We were on our way."

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these events actually occur in Chapter 1 of Night?

   • Moishe the Beadle escapes a mass shooting and returns to Sighet.

     Happened

     Moishe says the Gestapo shot the deportees in a forest near Kolomay; wounded in the leg and left for dead, he came back to Sighet.

   • Eliezer immediately believes Moishe's account of the killings.

     Didn't happen

     Eliezer says, "Even I did not believe him"; when he listened to Moishe's tales, all he felt was pity.

   • The Jews of Sighet are ordered to wear the yellow star.

     Happened

     Three days after the order to hand over gold and jewelry, a new decree says every Jew has to wear the yellow star.

   • Two ghettos are established in the town.

     Happened

     Two ghettos are created in Sighet: a large one in the center of town and a smaller one on the outskirts.

   • The German officer lodged in the Kahns' house threatens them.

     Didn't happen

     The officer lodged with the Kahns is said to be charming, calm, likable, and polite, and three days after moving in he brings Mrs. Kahn a box of chocolates.

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10. 10

    Question 10. Which of these happen in Chapter 1 of Night, and which do not?

    • The family's former maid offers them a hiding place in her village.

      Happened

      Maria, the family's former maid, comes to the small ghetto and, sobbing, begs them to come to the safe shelter she has prepared in her village.

    • The family accepts the offer and slips out of Sighet in secret.

      Didn't happen

      Eliezer's father will not hear of it; he tells the others they may go but he will stay, and the family refuses to be separated.

    • Eliezer's father is summoned to an emergency council meeting after dark.

      Happened

      One evening Stern, a former shopkeeper turned policeman, calls Eliezer's father to a special meeting of the Council, and he returns late that night with the news of transports.

    • The Jews of Sighet are allowed to keep their gold and jewelry.

      Didn't happen

      The Hungarian police order that no Jew may own gold, jewelry, or any valuables, and Eliezer's father buries the family's savings in the cellar.

    • The family is held overnight in the synagogue before reaching the station.

      Happened

      The convoy is taken to the main synagogue for twenty-four hours, and the next morning everyone walks to the station, where the cattle cars are waiting.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'billeted' mean as used in: 'The officers were billeted in private homes, even in Jewish homes.'?

    • Correct answer: Lodged in a private home by military order
    • Assigned to guard duty at a town checkpoint
    • Transferred to a different unit of the army
    • Promoted to a higher rank within the army

    To be billeted is to be quartered in civilian housing by military order. The detail matters because the officer's politeness helps convince Sighet it is safe.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'edicts' mean as used in: 'But new edicts were already being issued.'?

    • Public protests against the government
    • Formal complaints filed by citizens
    • Correct answer: Official orders carrying the force of law
    • Rumors passed along by word of mouth

    Edicts are decrees issued by an authority and binding as law. Wiesel stresses their speed to show how quickly the community's freedom disappears.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What does 'liquidated' mean as used in: 'The ghetto was to be liquidated entirely.'?

    • Expanded to take in more families
    • Placed under an even stricter curfew
    • Handed over to private ownership
    • Correct answer: Shut down and emptied of its inhabitants

    Liquidating a ghetto meant clearing it out entirely and deporting its population. The order is what sets the chapter's final transports in motion.

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