In the short story “The Watch” by Elie Wiesel, Elie recalls himself as a boy living with his family in the Ghettos of WWII. Burying his golden watch in the earth to protect it from looters. He returns to recover his watch and leave, but he unearths much more than just a timepiece. Elie is connected to the watch since it holds memories of times before his imprisonment, and feels similarities between them “It too has lived through the war and the Holocaust…it too was a survivor” (Pg. 4) When Elie recovers his watch and begins to leave, he is “overcome with violent remorse, I have just committed my first theft” (Pg. 4) He feels as if he has stolen from his past self and realizes the reasons it was left there in the past. He returns it to it’s original resting place, leaving with it the parts of himself he could do without, such as the memories of past hardships or tragedies. In this story, Elie Wiesel is showing that through facing his past hardships and moving forward, he will begin to recover.