Many people find it hard to believe when something bad is coming their way, and Moshe the Beadle personifies a theme of unheeded warnings. While it is unclear how things may have worked out differently for Elie Wiesel, his family, and his community had they heeded this warning, Moshe the Beadle provides a powerful example of foreshadowing.

Elie's mother and sister, who are sent to the gas chambers as soon as the family arrived at Auschwitz–Birkenau, are characters which relate to the utter cruelty and brutality practiced by the Nazi Party and those running these death camps.

A great example of how a character changes is Elie himself and his changing attitude towards his Jewish faith. When Rosh Hashanah comes around while he and his father are imprisoned in Buna, Eliezer finds himself revolted at the thought of any kind of celebration. Similarly, Elie chooses to eat on Yom Kippur, seeing it as an act of rebellion against God.

On the train from Gleiwitz, we see a heartbreaking example of a loss of humanity when Eliezer sees a son kill his own father for a crust of bread. Thanks to this and many other fights involving Jews turning on others of their own kind, only twelve of the one hundred men who began this journey are still in the wagon by the journey's end.