Why do you think Wiesel and his community were so resistant when it came to believing what was going on?

Moche tries to warn the townspeople of the atrocities that he has seen, but no one believes him. Everyone thinks he is trying to win sympathy or has simply gone insane. He tells Eliezer that he miraculously survived the concentration camps in order to save the Jews in Sighet, but life continues on as normal during 1942 and 1943. Eliezer devotes himself to his religious studies, his father busies himself in the Jewish community, and his mother tries to find a husband for Hilda.

In the spring of 1944, people believe that the Germans will soon be defeated by the Russians, and no one believes that the Nazis could want to exterminate an entire race of people. The Jews do not really consider that anything bad could happen to them, and even though Eliezer asks his father to emigrate to Palestine, his father does not want to start a new life elsewhere. Even after the townspeople hear that the Fascists have come into power in Hungary, no one really worries until the Germans actually invade Hungary and arrive at Sighet itself.