Elie is generally ambivalent toward the beatings that his father receives. This isn't because he's uncaring in any way; it's because his natural feelings toward his father have been numbed and blunted by the numerous horrors of life in a concentration camp. As a result, Elie is no longer able to feel normal human emotions and so cannot respond appropriately to his father's shocking ill treatment.

Among other things, life in a concentration camp can inculcate an attitude of survival of the fittest, where everyone has to look out for themselves if they're to stand the slightest chance of avoiding death. This "every man for himself" attitude inevitably has a profound effect on Elie, to the extent that he comes to see his father as something of a burden.

Elie also comes to resent his father's weakness, as can be observed in his attitude toward his being beaten by Idek. When Idek beats up his father, Elie is actually angry at his father for not avoiding this savage, brutal attack. Again, it's not that Elie is being callous; this is simply what he has been reduced to by his experiences of life in a concentration camp, which have gradually dehumanized him, reducing him to a shell of his former self.

Elie’s reactions to his father’s beatings are telling of how ill treatment at the hands of the Nazis and kapos breaks down his spirit over time.

At Birkenau, when he sees his father attacked for the simple action of asking where the toilets are when he experiences a “colic attack,” Elie simply stands and watches. However, regret sets in quickly, and he vows that he will never be able to forgive either the kapo or the organization that he stands for.

At Buna, Elie and his father are part of a group of prisoners assigned to load diesel motors onto trains. During this labor, a kapo named Idek accuses Elie’s father of being an “old loafer.” Elie’s father must subsequently accept a brutal beating with an iron bar. The severity of this beating is such that his father appears to have “[broken] in two.” By this time, Elie has adjusted to life in the camps, and he finds that his father, rather than the guards, is the target of his anger. He feels like his father should have been able to avoid the beating by “[avoiding] Idek’s wrath.” Later, he tries to teach his father how to march in step so as to avoid future beatings, but unfortunately, his father does not prove to be an adept pupil.

Elie is self-aware enough to realize that life in the camps is dehumanizing him and making him ambivalent toward his father’s suffering.

In Night, the reader is exposed to Eliezer’s emotional transformation and feelings toward his father, his only close relative in the camps. The first time Eliezer’s father is physically attacked, Eliezer feels helpless and remorseful. He fails to stand up for his father against the gypsy.

When Idek attacks Eliezer’s father, Eliezer keeps quiet and thinks of saving himself. He is angry at his father for not avoiding the attack.

Eliezer tries to help his father learn how to march correctly to avoid the frequent attacks from Franek. Franek wants Eliezer’s gold crown and punishes Eliezer’s father, forcing Eliezer to give it to him.

When Eliezer’s father is suffering from dysentery and hospitalized, other patients attack him because he cannot relieve himself outside. Eliezer verbally abuses the patients and tries to bribe them with rations of food, but the patients only laugh at him. Eliezer is trying to make his father’s condition better.

At Birkenau, Elie Wiesel finds himself strangely apathetic when he witnesses his father being beaten. Due to an attack of colic, his father asks for the bathroom, but the Kapo beats him instead. Elie is both petrified and stunned at his passivity and his inability to save his father from physical suffering.

Another instance of Elie's father suffering a beating is at the work camp in Buna. While the prisoners are loading diesel motors onto the trains, Idek, the Kapo, suddenly decides to vent his irritation on Elie's father. Idek viciously beats the older man with an iron bar because he claims that the old man is working too slowly. As Elie watches his father receiving a terrible beating, he finds himself nursing ambivalent thoughts. First, he remains silent and does not speak up in his father's defense. He even wonders whether he should run away so that he will not have to suffer the same fate. Then, he finds himself irrationally angry at his father for not being smart enough to escape Idek's wrath and for not doing everything he could to prevent Idek from getting angry.

Elie's own reaction is a great sorrow to him, as he thinks that being at the camp has dehumanized him.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, how did Elie's father respond when he learned his name had been written down?

In chapter 5, Elie and his father initially believe they have both have passed the first selection. A few days later, the Blockälteste announces that he has been given a list of numbers and those called need to report for a second selection. Elie then sees his father running towards him with a worried look on his face. Elie's father says that his number has been called and he will have to participate in the second selection. In one of the most moving scenes of the novel, Elie mentions that his father began to speak rapidly and run out of breath as he attempted to say goodbye to his son for what he thought was the last time. Elie's father has desperate look on his face and begins confusing his words as speaks to his son. Elie's father then gives his son a knife and spoon before leaving for the second selection. When Elie receives the knife and spoon from his father, he remembers thinking that those two items were his entire inheritance. After Elie's father leaves for the second selection, Elie wanders around in a daze at work. Later that evening, Elie is relieved to reunite with his father, who survived the second selection process.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, how did Elie's father respond when he learned his name had been written down?

In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie's father learns that his name has been written down for selection. His first reaction is to reassure his son, Elie. He tells him that nothing is for sure and that there is still hope. He believes it is possible he will be given a reprieve, or at least that is what he tells Elie. However, as the time for Elie to go to work comes closer, his father begins to speak quickly. 

"He would have liked to say so many things. His speech grew confused; his voice choked. He knew that I would have to go in a few moments. He would have to stay behind alone, so very alone" (Wiesel 71).

Before Elie can leave, his father gives him his knife and spoon. Elie calls it "the inheritance" (Wiesel 71). Elie, at first, refuses to take it, but his father pleads with him, and finally, he does. 

When Elie gets back to camp that night, he is surprised and pleased to see that his father is still there.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, how did Elie's father respond when he learned his name had been written down?

Throughout much of Elie Wiesel's autobiographical depiction of the Holocaust, Night, the author's main character and stand-in for Wiesel, Eliezer, is highly critical of his father Shlomo's mental and physical weaknesses. The imperative of survival under the most horrendous conditions, Wiesel/Eliezer emphasizes, requires a deadening of one's emotions. Personal attachments are a weakness, and having to care for one's father under such circumstances is, the author suggests, a serious burden. Forcibly uprooted, along with the rest of the Jews in Hungary, and sent to German concentration camps like Auschwitz where the weak were immediately sent to their death and the rest forced into hard labor under inhumane conditions in the service of the Third Reich, Eliezer's family has been split up and he, the child, becomes the parent to the father. The depth of Eliezer's antipathy toward the older man whose weaknesses he resents reaches terrible extremes. In Chapter 4 of Night, the young narrator describes the violent fury of a Kapo, a Jewish prisoner suborned into the service of the prison guards, who takes his own anguish out on Shlomo:

"I had watched the whole scene without moving. I kept quiet. In fact, I was thinking about how to get farther away so that I would not be hit myself. What is more, the anger I felt at that moment, was directed, not against the Kapo, but against my father. I was angry at him for not knowing how to avoid [the Kapo's] outbreak.That is what concentration camp life had made of me."

Later in Chapter 4, Eliezer again is given reason to resent his father. Franek, a foreman at the camp, demands he give up the gold crown on his tooth. Eliezer objects, but Franek knows Eliezer's vulnerability: Shlomo. Franek begins a regular daily routine of beating Shlomo until Eliezer and his father give in and surrender the gold crown. In short, Eliezer believes that his life, difficult as it is, would be less so if not for the albatross hanging around his neck in the form of his own father.

As Chapter 5 begins, the Jewish prisoners attempt to honor their most sacred days, the Jewish New Year and beginning of the period of atonement. For Eliezer, however, it is all an empty gesture. His experiences in the the concentration camps, the constant displays of cruelty, the enormous suffering and atmosphere of death, have eroded his spirituality. He no longer believes in God, or, at least, in the notion of a Supreme Being dispensing justice and protecting those who believe. "I no longer accepted God's silence," he laments in this chapter. Eliezer tells now of the process of selection. The SS has arrived, and Jews will once again be subjected to the inhumane process of being divided into those who will die and those who will be spared for at least one more day. The weakest among the prisoners will be separated from the rest and sent to their deaths. Dr. Joseph Mengele, one of the most notorious of all the Nazi war criminals, and his SS doctors are conducting the selection.

To reiterate, Shlomo has been, in Eliezer's view, a burden. The son has had to take care of the father, a reversal of relative positions. Now, however, the father has bad news for the son: he has been selected. Whereas Eliezer has grown accustomed to his father's weaknesses, he is now confronted with a father who is still concerned for the son and who seeks to reassure the latter. Eliezer describes the situation as follows:

"He (Shlomo) felt that his time was short. He spoke quickly. He would have liked to say so many things.... He knew that I would have to go in a few moments. He would have to stay behind alone. So very alone."

Shlomo insists that Eliezer take his, the father's, knife and spoon, arguing that he doesn't need such items anymore, and that "they might be useful to you." When Eliezer hesitates, Shlomo insists that his son do as he says, a rare moment of parental authority and assurance. 

Wiesel's story is a depiction of life under the most terrible of circumstances. The dehumanizing environment in which the prisoners were forced to live has robbed the teenage narrator of his ability to empathize with his father's plight. At this final moment, however, the son reverts to being the child and the father is, once more, the parent.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, how did Elie's father respond when he learned his name had been written down?

Dr. Mengele arrived at the camp to "weed out" those too sick and weak to work.  All of the prisoners are reviewed and if their number is written down they must remain in camp for further examination and possible death.  At first Elie's father doesn't think his number has been written down.  After several days a group of numbers are read off and they are told to stay behind in camp that day.  When Elie's father realizes his number has been called he runs to Elie in a panic and tries to be brave.  He tells his son that maybe there is still hope, but he gives Elie his knife and his spoon.  He tells Elie that he will have more use of it now.

"Look, take this knife," he said to me. "I don't need it any longer and it might be useful to you.  And take this spoon as well.  don't sell them.  Quickly! Go on.  Take what I'm giving you!" (pg 50)