Night by Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Horrors of the Holocaust
Night by Elie Wiesel is a book that should not have to existand yet it must. On one hand, it is unthinkable that the atrocities it chronicles are true. On the other hand, it is equally unthinkable that they might be forgotten by future generations. It is imperative that we have first-hand accounts of the Holocaust like Wiesels to bear witness to the fact that such inhumanity occurred in the past century, so it may never occur again. Finally, Night is also written as a way for Wiesel to reclaim his own humanity, after being dehumanized by his captors.
Wiesel, over the course of the novel, witnesses horrific crimes. Within the first pages of the short novel, Wiesels mother and sister are torn away from him. He never sees them again. By the end of the novel, he will also lose his father. In his introduction, Wiesel is adamant that the fact he survived was not due to his goodness, or tenacity. It was pure luck. If heaven could or would perform a miracle for me, why not for others more deserving than myself? (Wiesel 10-11). Wiesel describes Night as a way to struggle to give meaning to his life and death, and the lives and deaths of those who were not fortunate enough to survive, including other family members and members of his community. The book is not hopeful at the end, but Wiesel seems to have written it in a spirit of hope.
The fact that Wiesel wishes to make it very clear that many good people...
First, the inmates of the camp are stripped of the physical trappings that make them human. They must bargain for the simplest of things, like having butter on their bread or even keeping their shoes: He liked my shoes; I would not let him have them. Later, they were taken from me anyway. In...
…of goodness throughout the book, except for the occasional words of assistance, like urging him to eat when he could, that enabled him to live until the very end.
On a personal level, after reading the book, it is difficult not to gain perspective on my own struggles and difficulties. Very few of us, fortunately, will be pushed to the edge like Wiesel was, and his hope is that no one will ever have to experience what he did, ever again. In some ways, the book is an unusual memoir, since books about overcoming adversity usually have inspiring messages, implying that if someone works hard (or, at least, has help from someone else), that mountains can be moved. If there is any message at the end of Night, it is simply to urge people to help make a world not like the one Wiesel had to endure. Given the events that Wiesel described are farther away from us when he first wrote his work, it is all the more important to read this gift of a book…
