Quick Summary of What has Happened
The beginning of Night starts off by simply introducing the Wiesel family and Moishe the Beadle, a poor, foreign Jew. They live in Sighet, Romania. The time period is the early 1940's and the Sighet Jews are being driven out of their homes and to Auschwitz.
What I Think:
While reading the beginning, I saw that Elie was very passionate yet curious, but mainly determined. He set a goal for himself while being at a young age. Elie's dream is to stay very religious but become a scholar to the Kabbalah, showing a little bit of innocence and how naive he was. However, the thing that struck me more than anything was how the Jews never paid attention to the warnings that were being handed to them. They ignored them and tried to make things go back to "normal". This just makes you wonder, did they really think nothing would happen? That God or that the Russians would protect them? Did they themselves believe everything is fine and dandy, like "Oh! Budapest was captured but no, they'll never come here!". If so, they too were naive and believed in God a little too much. They should have listened to Moishe the Beadle, and maybe they could've escaped.
(picture: http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/2012/images/archive/105BO7.jpg)
(picture: http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/2012/images/archive/105BO7.jpg)