There are so many abuses; it is difficult to believe that anyone managed to survive the brutal conditions in the camps. The Jews had literally nothing to eat but scraps of bread, the Nazis often punished the entire camp for the slightest mistake. For example, he remembers the Nazis forcing them to stand still while they were naked in the snow, and he recounts a Nazi guard's rape of a Polish girl. He writes with vast emotion about the cruelties piled on the survivors, and the book is difficult to read because of these images. In another example, he states, "How long had we been standing like this in the icy wind? An hour? Simply an hour? Sixty minutes? Surely it was a dream" (Weisel 47). Sadly, the book is full of these images and it is difficult to read because of it. The book could not be called "enjoyable," it was too dramatic and sad for that. However, it was fascinating, and even though it ended on a hopeless note, it was a book of hope because the author survived, and is still alive. He managed to beat the odds, and more importantly, he shared his story with the world. It is a terrible story, but he needed to tell it. Some people still do not believe the Holocaust existed, and reading this book it is hard to see how they could doubt it. A child lived through these horrible experiences, and just the telling of them is horrific, it must have been even worse to be there. To see the images this young boy saw, and not believe them is just too much.

As far as liking the book, I did like it,...

It is hard to see how anyone could be so cruel and inhumane, but they were, and people need to understand that. Millions of Jews died during the Holocaust, and those who survived, like Weisel, are obligated to tell their story so that generations later, people still understand how horrible the Nazis were. I liked the book because it was a real glimpse into history, but reading it was not pleasant or entertaining. It was more of a struggle to get through, because there were so many things happening to people. Weisel seems to have become numb to the experience after a while - that was the only way he could survive and not go crazy. It is like that for the reader, too. After a while, the incidents in the book become so overwhelming that you have to become a little numb to finish the book, and then, thinking about the entire experience makes you numb again, and very sad.
The book fits into the course because it is an important historical document that helps people understand an important and unforgettable time in history. We may not want to know about the Holocaust, but we need to know, so that we know just what humankind is capable of. We want to make sure something like this never happens again, and understanding what happened can make us all more wary in the future.

References

Weisel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam, 1982.