Night by Elie Wiesel: Confronting Holocaust Horrors

Introduction: A Book That Must Exist

Night by Elie Wiesel is a book that should not have to exist — and 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 Wiesel's 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.

Witnessing Atrocity and the Loss of Family

Wiesel, over the course of the memoir, witnesses horrific crimes. Within the first pages of the short book, Wiesel's mother and sister are torn away from him. He never sees them again. By the end, he will also lose his father. In his introduction, Wiesel is adamant that his survival 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 struggle to give meaning to his life and death, and to 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.

Dehumanization in the Camps

The fact that Wiesel wishes to make clear that many good people were not spared is evident in his portrayal of life in the camp, where people are struggling and squabbling over crumbs simply to make it to the next day. First, the inmates 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 exchange for nothing, that time" (Wiesel 48). Then, as Wiesel witnesses more and more horrors, he begins to lose his sense of faith and belief in humanity.

Despite the sometimes unremitting bleakness of the book, Night is still a gift to readers. First, it is testimony to the ability of a human being to survive under the worst possible conditions. Even if Wiesel says that he was not spared for any particular reason, the fact that he was able to take his experience and transform it into art — enabling both himself and others to better understand what transpired — is itself a gift. The book is also able to personalize the Holocaust in a way that history books cannot.

Psychological and Spiritual Devastation

Perhaps what is most compelling about Night from a reader's perspective is the extent to which it highlights how dehumanizing it was to survive the Holocaust — psychologically as well as physically. "I spent my days in total idleness. With only one desire: to eat. I no longer thought of my father, or my mother. From time to time, I would dream. But only about soup, an extra ration of soup" (Wiesel 113). After being hungry for so long, Wiesel did not have the cognitive or physical energy to think about anything other than eating. As horrible as it is to see photographs from this period of camp survivors, the complete desolation Wiesel felt is in its own way just as awful. He seems to have been spiritually starving as well as physically starving.

Works Cited

Wiesel, Elie. Night. Translated by Marian Wiesel. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1958.