Deeply moving,

man’s inhumanity to man never fails to shock. Throughout history, we have witnessed countless examples of this tragic phenomenon. Wars, genocides, and acts of violence have left a trail of destruction and heartbreak.

It is truly astonishing how one human being can cause so much pain and suffering to another. We see it in the form of discrimination, prejudice, and hatred.

These actions not only harm the individuals directly involved but also have a negative impact on society as a whole.

However, in the face of such darkness, there are also glimmers of hope. There are those who choose to stand up against inhumanity and fight for justice and equality.

We must learn from the past and strive to create a more compassionate and understanding world.

Only then can we truly break free from the cycle of man’s inhumanity to man and build a future filled with peace and love.

Everyone was talking about this book, and I just devoured it. Now I understand mentally what this night was. The title of this book is "Night", and the story that follows is as dark as a night. A pitch-dark night!

When I finished the book, I recalled a few lines of Octavio Paz at the beginning of the review. "Lightning or fishes In the night of the sea And bird lightning In the forest night Our bones are lightening In the night of the flesh O world! All is night Life is the lightening".

The problem is that the story inside the title "Night" is real, not fictional, and this is the biggest plight. The anguish and horror in this book are not just the suffering of one person, Eliezer. It is a universal pain. This book is a very intimate, firsthand account of a survivor's perspective that was recorded in his memory permanently, inside the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

In the book, those horrifying events, narrated from the viewpoint of a teenage boy who suffered personal losses, seem mostly true to the core and are very scary. It's really petrifying, and I can't imagine someone had done such things to human beings. A bunch of human beings treating another bunch of humans like animals, like lifeless stuff, filling them into a cattle car and jostling them hard like mules. Not leaving even infants. Horrible!

I know well enough about the Holocaust. But this is my first try of any such intimate account on it. This year I have already begun many other books revolving around WWII and Nazi stuff. And with this one, it's a ghastly opening, very grim emotions it has produced in me.

While the book is about a very heinous and unfortunate historical wrongdoing, a shame on human civilization, the author has made an extremely legible piece of work for the general reader. The original manuscript was written in Yiddish and is translated quite well in English.

The book also shows the writerly craft of the author, where he has been able to bring out the tender and heart-touching emotions between the characters regarding friendships and father-son relations.

The boy is very possessive of his father and wishes to keep himself with him all the time, even in the face of death. He just wants to be close to his father, irrespective of whatever happens next.

A young boy inside the concentration camp asks his friend that his turn is next and now he will be dead in a few days, and thus he counts his days.

The power of Weisel's story and its engaging narration has taken me aback. How clearly he has overpowered me as a reader through his very intense storytelling artistry of a very personal account of his life.

One of the most important things that I kept noticing everywhere is the numinous undertone in the dialogues between the characters. It reveals the spiritual aspect of whatever happened in his life. An incorporeal elucidation!

This book raises many questions, most of which remain unanswered.

I’ve been having the intention to read Night for numerous years. Finally, shortly after learning about Eli Wiesel’s passing, I picked up this book. Night is not a typical book that I can simply review. It truly defies critique. Even sitting on my sunny porch, sipping a cup of coffee and attempting to analyze it, feels inappropriate. However, it is precisely the reasons why Night lies beyond the realm of criticism that render it of such great importance.

There is the Holocaust itself, and then there is the world's complex relationship with the Holocaust. By the end of the 1960s, this relationship involved the adult children of survivors, scholars, deniers, apologists, voyeurs, and those who cover their ears the moment the subject is brought up.

Night was penned before all of that. It is not influenced by other Holocaust literature. Instead, it serves as a fundamental text, unadorned source material that describes one of the most heinous acts our species has ever committed. For this very reason, I firmly believe that it should be compulsory reading for everyone.

Night is concise, and the writing is straightforward. It feels stark, honest, and hallowed, much like a powerful memorial. In the preface of my edition, Wiesel writes:

“There are those who tell me that I survived in order to write this text. I am not convinced. I don’t know how I survived; I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to save myself. A miracle? Certainly not. If heaven could or would perform a miracle for me, why not for others more deserving than myself? It was nothing more than chance. However, having survived, I needed to give some meaning to my survival. …I knew that I must bear witness.”

Wiesel was a brilliant light in the darkness that he portrays so powerfully. His obituary in the New York Times describes him aptly, “There may have been better chroniclers who evoked the hellish minutiae of the German death machine. There were arguably more illuminating philosophers. But no single figure was able to combine Mr. Wiesel’s moral urgency with his magnetism, which emanated from his deeply lined face and eyes as unrelievable melancholy.”

When I initiated this review, I intended to post a famous photo of him as part of a group of emaciated prisoners on the day that Buchenwald was liberated. But after reading that beautiful quote, I would rather conclude with this photo of the day he won the Nobel Peace Prize. This photo illustrates the knowledge he bestowed upon the world rather than the darkness he endured.

The night had passed completely.

The morning star shone brightly in the sky.

I too had become a different person.

The student of Talmud, the innocent child I was, had been mercilessly consumed by the cruel flames.

All that remained was a mere shape that vaguely resembled me.

My soul had been brutally invaded—and devoured—by a menacing black flame.

This is truly a beautiful and devastating work.

I wholeheartedly applaud Elie Wiesel for his remarkable courage in describing these traumatic experiences with such intimacy and honesty.

He does not shy away from the dark and ugly part of human nature that can surface in such inhumane circumstances.

The description of his relationship with his father during the imprisonment is of great psychological depth.

It feels as if this is something deeply personal, something that one would only be able to share with a trusted confidant.

The level of consciousness of Elie's psychological and spiritual processes at such a young age is truly astonishing.

He describes the anger, the loss of faith, the despair, and the estrangement with painful accuracy.

It reminds me of the first part of Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.

This is a great compliment to Wiesel, considering that Frankl was a grown man, a doctor, and a psychiatrist during his imprisonment.

In comparison to Frankl's work, Wiesel's writing has less emotional warmth and is more direct.

I think this reflects the defense mechanism of dissociation, often seen in trauma, especially at a young age.

I've read that there is also great work by Primo Levi about the experience of concentration camps that I look forward to reading in the future.

For some reason, I find writing about the experiences of concentration camps hypnotic.

Once I start reading, I can't stop, no matter how much emotional distress it causes me.

It is both deeply tragic and encouraging to see people endure hell on earth and still prevail, still maintain and even grow their spiritual and psychological strength.

I still remember the profound impact that Man's Search for Meaning had on me.

Night may not have such an evident silver lining as Man's Search for Meaning, but I found it equally cathartic.

Both Wiesel and Frankl are immense gifts to humanity.

It breaks my heart to think about how many voices were silenced forever because of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Their experiences are not just personal; they have made them universal, transpersonal, and transcendental in their writing, with the potential to heal and show that the path of light exists even in the darkest of ages.

**Un di Velt Hot Geshvign = Night (The Night Trilogy #1), Elie Wiesel**

Elie Wiesel, born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, was just a teenager when in 1944, he and his family were forcibly taken from their home to Auschwitz concentration camp and then to Buchenwald.

Night is a harrowing account of Wiesel's memories. It details the loss of his family, the shattering of his own innocence, and his profound despair as a devout Jew facing the absolute evil of man. The book serves as a powerful testimony to the atrocities that occurred in the camps and carries his unforgettable message that such horror must never be allowed to repeat.

Marion Wiesel translated this work, and François Mauriac provided the foreword. Wiesel's words, such as "We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented," resonate deeply.

The book has been published in different editions in Persian. It was first translated into Persian by Nina Esteve and later by Farideh Gohandeh and Ehsan Qarakhani. Elie Wiesel, a renowned writer, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and professor of Jewish studies, was also a Holocaust survivor. He served as a peace envoy for the United Nations from 1998 until his death.

His book Night remains one of his most significant works, vividly描绘ing the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps and serving as a reminder of the importance of never forgetting and standing up against injustice.

"I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy."


These powerful words from the book Night truly tore at my heart. I had known about Night for many years, both seeing it and hearing of it. I had been hesitant to read it, wondering what I could possibly gain from yet another account of the evil that exists among our fellow human beings. I feared that I would become enraged and depressed, unable to change history. I was also reluctant to examine my own faith. However, when I discovered that my son was assigned this book as part of his summer reading for a high school English class, my perspective changed. I began to think about what I wanted him to learn from this dark piece of our not too distant past. Should he pass it by to avoid experiencing the horrifying details and feeling the terrible injustice in the world? No, I did not want him to be a passive bystander. I wanted him to understand that despite his fortunate and protected upbringing, narrow-mindedness, hatred, and bigotry still exist. Other human beings are currently suffering unimaginable sorrow and being cruelly maltreated. History has a tendency to repeat itself, perhaps with different backgrounds and groups of individuals, but we cannot let this happen. My son needs to read this book, as do his children someday. And I needed to read it too. So I did, and I cried. I was angry and disgusted with humanity. I understood Elie's words above and why he felt such despair. Everyone should read this book at least once. It is a slim book with a tremendous message.



"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere."

What can I even say about this book?

It was an absolute powerhouse of emotions. It was not only sad and depressing but also held glimmers of hope and optimism. This is the first book in the Night Trilogy, Elie Wiesel's memoir of his own harrowing experiences at various concentration camps.

It is a true story from one of the darkest and worst times in modern history. Witnessing the brutality and the complete disregard for human life that the Nazis had, as seen through the eyes of 15-year-old Eliezer, was truly heart-wrenching.

You simply cannot critique a book like this in a traditional sense. It is purely an emotional journey. You will find yourself crying, getting angry, crying again, feeling disgusted, and in the end, crying yet again.

F%#k the Nazis. The best revenge, as Wiesel shows, was survival.

I eagerly anticipate the next two books in the series, hoping that they will be just as impactful and powerful as this one.

I am certain that they will continue to touch the hearts and souls of readers, and serve as a reminder of the atrocities that took place during the Holocaust.

I vividly remember the moment when this story first came to my attention. It was several years ago when it was included in the Oprah book club list. Ever since then, I have always intended to read it.

We have read numerous novels centered around the Holocaust, and they are truly difficult to get through. However, these first-hand personal experiences are brutally harsh and almost unimaginable.

Ellie was merely 15 years old when he and his family were forcibly taken away to the camps.

I really can't add much more than what others have already said in their reviews. But I would highly recommend that you just read it. Or, if you prefer, listen to it. The audio version was quite good!

Excerpt from Night

Never shall I forget that night, the very first night in the camp, which has transformed my life into an endless night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that billowing smoke. Never shall I forget the innocent little faces of the children, whose bodies I witnessed being turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those infernal flames that devoured my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the will to live. Never shall I forget those moments that brutally murdered my God and my soul and reduced my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

—Elie Wiesel, from Night

Night is Elie Wiesel's poignant memoir that vividly details his harrowing experiences during the Holocaust. It is a deeply shocking and profoundly sad account, yet it is of utmost importance and well worth reading. Wiesel's powerful witnessing of one of humanity's darkest chapters and his honest confession about how it irrevocably changed him make this book a must-read. In the new introduction to the ebook version I perused, Wiesel spoke of the great difficulty he had in putting his experience into words. "Convinced that this period in history would be judged one day, I knew that I must bear witness. I also knew that, while I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them." pg. 7, introduction.

The original version of Night was penned in Yiddish. I truly wish I had sufficient knowledge of Yiddish to be able to read it in its original form. There is an inherent power in reading books in their unadulterated state. Wiesel concludes his introduction by sharing his reasons for writing this book: "For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time." pg 12, introduction.

Even though a member of his community had warned Wiesel's village about the impending horrors, they simply did not believe him. After being confined to a ghetto, the Jewish population of Sighet naively thought that the worst was behind them. "Most people thought that we would remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Afterward everything would be as before. The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion." pg 26, ebook. If I had found myself in their shoes, I don't think I would have acted any differently. How could one possibly fathom the atrocities that they were about to encounter?

Wiesel endured starvation, excessive work, and beatings in the concentration camps. He lost not only his family but also his faith. "One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me." pgs 110 - 111 ebook. Another Holocaust survivor's memoir that I highly recommend is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. We must never forget the atrocities of the Holocaust.

From the very first few sentences, I found myself completely immobile. Elie Wiesel had captured my full attention and earned my total respect. The courage it must have required for him to relive the horrors he endured while writing this book is truly immense.

The story he tells is both harrowing and chilling, yet it is related with great compassion. His struggle for survival during the Holocaust is almost too difficult to fathom. However, this book has to be read, and everyone should do so. It makes all the ordinary things in life seem far more significant.

After turning the last page, I gazed out the window of my apartment. I looked up at the sky, down at the street, listened to the noise of the city, and watched the people walking by. The life, the freedom, the hugs, the kisses - what an overwhelming joy it all is.

This book has truly opened my eyes and made me appreciate the preciousness of life and all its simple pleasures. It serves as a powerful reminder of the atrocities that took place during the Holocaust and the importance of never forgetting.

I will carry the lessons learned from this book with me always and encourage others to do the same.

This is not a review. I am not worthy to review this book.

I first read "Night" as a requirement in high school, and then again in college. This is my third time picking it up. I found it on a library shelf, standing upright, and noticed the new preface by the author.

I have read that preface four times already. It is that important and thought-provoking.

I am at a loss for words. I am in awe of the remarkable person that Elie Wiesel is.

The story is a heart-wrenching and terrifying account of indescribable suffering. It is a story that must be read and remembered.

Every time I read it, I am left with a profound sense of the horror and the importance of never forgetting. It is truly a 5-star book.

5★
This is truly “the” Holocaust book. It feels almost presumptuous of me to offer my comments, yet here I go.

“‘No, I wanted to come back, and to warn you. And see how it is, no one will listen to me…’ [Moshe the Beadle] That was toward the end of 1942.
. . .
Spring 1944. Good news from the Russian front. No doubt could remain now of Germany's defeat.
. . .
‘The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it. . . ’ (Poor Father! Of what then did you die?)
. . .
Then came the ghetto.
. . .
we were entirely self-contained. A little Jewish republic. . . .
. . .
Everyone marveled at it.”

Slowly but surely, the Jewish population of Sighet, a small town in Transylvania (Romania), was gradually squeezed out of their comfortable homes and herded into a ghetto. However, the Russians were expected any day, and surely things couldn't be as dire as Moshe the Beadle continuously insisted. After all, people just don't treat each other in such a cruel way.

Moshe the Beadle had been a humble “man of all work” at the temple. He was an insignificant, unimposing, and inconsequential little man who was treated with what I would describe as fond disregard. Young Eliezer Wiesel, on the other hand, was a deeply devout twelve-year-old boy who adored the old stories and read them as if they were current news. He would excitedly run home to tell his mother what had “just happened,” much like a child warning their parents about the Big Bad Wolf who had tricked Little Red Riding Hood.

His father believed he was too young to study seriously, but Moshe was more than happy to engage in discussions with him. Sadly, Moshe was one of the so-called “foreign” Jews who were among the first to be deported from the villages. Nobody really understood what was happening, and they more or less forgot about him... until he miraculously returned. He had escaped and wanted to warn them of the horrors he had witnessed.

“Moshe had changed. There was no longer any joy in his eyes. He no longer sang. He no longer talked to me of God or of the cabbala, but only of what he had seen. People refused not only to believe his stories, but even to listen to them. ‘He's just trying to make us pity him. What an imagination he has!’ they said. Or even: ‘Poor fellow. He's gone mad.’ And as for Moshe, he wept.”

Wiesel describes his childhood, family, and town with such loving care. We get a vivid picture of what kind of people they were, the life they led, and how they cared for each other and their village.

As the Jewish members of the community were gradually rounded up and confined to the ghetto, and then the ghetto was further constricted, Elie's father declined the opportunity to fill out papers to apply for emigration permits to Palestine. He was too old to change, he said. This will all end soon, he believed.

But change was inevitable. The remaining Jews were finally instructed to gather a few meager possessions and some food and were then herded into the infamous cattle cars to be transported to the camps. Wiesel describes every thought and every step of this harrowing journey with great precision. A particularly poignant passage, for those of us reading today with the knowledge of the truth, was when a woman looked out of the carriage into the night.

“It was Madame Schachter. Standing in the middle of the wagon, in the pale light from the windows, she looked like a withered tree in a cornfield. She pointed her arm toward the window, screaming: ‘Look! Look at it! Fire! A terrible fire! Mercy! Oh, that fire!’
. . .
There was nothing there; only the darkness.
. . .
‘She's mad, poor soul. ’”

It happened again, and finally once more at Auschwitz when they looked and saw the actual flame of the crematorium. She wasn't mad after all. For some inexplicable reason, she could foresee the dangers that Moshe the Beadle had tried in vain to warn them about. Wiesel endured a year in the camps when he was just 15, lost his entire family, and somehow managed to survive. He spares no details, and I struggle to comprehend how anyone could have endured the abuse, the cold, and the starvation. I think I would have simply curled up and let the snow claim me.

Wiesel said he waited ten long years after the end of the war before writing this account because he believed that silence was as important as words. I can empathize with his sentiment, but his words are of utmost importance in counteracting the silence of so many others.

After breaking his silence, he wrote his first draft, which he claims was a staggering 900 pages in Yiddish. The edition I read in English was translated from French and is significantly shorter. He worked as a journalist in France for several years before making his home in the United States, where he served as a Professor in the Humanities at Boston University for many years. Regardless of the language, the experience he describes is universally horrifying, but his memory is crucial and must be shared.

In his Nobel acceptance speech, he said,

“. . . this honor belongs to all the survivors and their children, and through us, to the Jewish people with whose destiny I have always identified.

I remember: it happened yesterday or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the kingdom of night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.

I remember: he asked his father: ‘Can this be true?’ This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?

And now the boy is turning to me: ‘Tell me,’ he asks. ‘What have you done with my future? What have you done with your life?’

And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.”

Elie Wiesel did everything in his power to ensure that nobody forgets. He traveled the world, working with world leaders in troubled spots such as Rwanda, to remind us all that this “othering” and ethnic cleansing must be stopped.

The subject matter and the experiences described are as heart-wrenching as one would expect, but we must remember. Australians say “Lest we forget” as we remember all the soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for the country. And yet, the world still turns a blind eye to atrocities in Rwanda, Cambodia, the plight of the Rohingya, and countless refugees... the list seems endless.

If you were to read only one book about the Holocaust, this should be the one. Let us all carry on the campaign for human rights and call out abuse for what it truly is.