This is not a book for critiquing.

It is a true story that holds such power and significance that it demands to be read and read again.

The narrative within these pages is not one to be simply passed over or dismissed.

It is a tale that has the ability to touch the hearts and souls of those who engage with it.

Each time it is read, new details may emerge, new emotions may be felt, and a deeper understanding may be gained.

This is a story that has the potential to change lives, to inspire, and to leave a lasting impact.

It is a story that should be cherished and shared, a story that will continue to resonate with readers for generations to come.

So, pick up this book, open its pages, and allow yourself to be drawn into the captivating world of this true story.

Read it once, and then read it again, for with each reading, you will discover something new and wonderful.

Initial Thoughts

I was required to read a memoir/biography as part of a group reading challenge. Not being a big fan of this genre, I sought something short yet impactful. I couldn't have made a better choice than Eli Wiesel's Night.

Clocking in at just over one hundred pages, it's a concise but deeply sobering tale of a young Jewish/Romanian man who endured Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

The author himself was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for spreading his message globally as an author and public speaker. I knew this would be a tough read, but undoubtedly a crucial one.

The Story

In May 1944, when Elie Wiesel was 15, the Nazis arrived in his hometown of Sighet, Transylvania, to deport the Jewish population to concentration camps. He was sent to Auschwitz and then Buchenwald. The story details the atrocities that ensued.

From the outset, he描绘s an incredibly harrowing scene as he and his father are separated from his mother and sister. He then describes the daily struggles they faced as they were forced into slave labor. Hanging over them was the constant threat of execution if they displeased their captors in any way.

Although it's an extremely emotional and painful story, it provided me with a firsthand look into the horror that occurred. It's difficult to put into perspective, but the events within this short book left me with no doubt about the brutality of the Nazi regime.

The Writing

The writing in Night was surprisingly excellent. Wiesel's prose is direct and clear, leaving little room for misinterpretation, yet it's powerful and heavy with emotion, enhanced by expert description. For me, the least I expect from an author's writing is that it doesn't impede the story, and this one achieves that with astounding effect. Eli makes the events both extremely real and deeply personal, placing me right there with him throughout all that horror and deprivation.

The book is filled with profound themes, and one that particularly stood out to me was the struggle to maintain one's faith in the face of such extreme human cruelty. In the midst of that level of evil, a person's entire sense of reality is called into question as friends turn on each other in a fight for survival. It made me reflect on myself and wonder what I would do. Sobering indeed.

Final Thoughts

This book is bleak, dark, and utterly unforgettable. It often feels like a work of fiction, and I truly wish it were. But it holds great historical significance.

As the events of World War II recede further into history, it becomes even more vital to remind ourselves of what happened. It must not be forgotten.

In fact, Mr. Wiesel states that he wrote his memoir for precisely that purpose. For me, it is essential reading for everyone. The most important one hundred pages you may ever read. If you only read one Holocaust account, make sure it's this one. Thank you!

Eli Wiesel

UPDATE FEB 2021

Read it again, and this time it's even more powerful. Wiesel tackles numerous issues, poses many profound questions, and tells a story filled with poignancy and horror, compelling the world to take notice.

I repeat, as I mentioned below, I am extremely proud that Elie Wiesel read and gave a favorable comment on my first novel, The Heretic.

UPDATE DEC 2019

I have re-read NIGHT for a very specific purpose. As I strive to conclude my new novel (CAUGHT IN A FLOOD OF EVIL, 1934 - 1946... the sequel to A FLOOD OF EVIL) with Berthold and Anna's feelings about God, I need to consider Elie Wiesel's view of God. Wiesel didn't hold back, as these quotes clearly demonstrate.

... Someone started to recite Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I wonder if, throughout the history of the Jewish people, men have ever recited Kaddish for themselves before. May His name be celebrated and sanctified. I felt anger welling up inside me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and fearsome Master of the Universe, chose to remain silent. What was there to thank Him for?

... Where is God's mercy? Where is God? How can I believe? How can anyone believe in this God of mercy?

... Blessed be God's name? Why, why would I bless Him? Every fiber in my being rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria operating day and night, including Sabbath and the holy days? Because, in His great might, He created Auschwitz? How could I say to Him: blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers ended up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy holy name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?

**********

Night is a powerful and moving memoir. As one of the first of its kind to be published, it served to unleash Wiesel's unique voice. Sometime in the next year or so, I will re-read Night as part of my research for my next novel.

When I heard Wiesel speak in the early 1970s, I had the impression that, although he was speaking prose, I was hearing poetry. His is one of the great voices of our era.

I am incredibly proud that Professor Wiesel read and commented favorably on my first novel, The Heretic.

Night is Elie Wiesel's powerful memoir that chronicles his harrowing experiences in Auschwitz, Buca, and Buchenwald. Miraculously, he survived to share this tragic story with the world.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986, Wiesel spoke of a young Jewish boy who discovered the Kingdom of Night. This Kingdom of Night represented the appalling conditions the Jews endured in the concentration camps, the never-ending darkness and death. For Elie, Auschwitz was this very Kingdom of Night.

He vividly remembered the boy's bewilderment and anguish. Everything happened with such astonishing speed. The ghetto, the deportation, the sealed cattle car, and the fiery altar where the history of their people and the future of mankind seemed doomed to be sacrificed. The boy 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?"

Now, that boy is turning to Wiesel. "Tell me," he asks, "what have you done with my future, what have you done with your life?" Wiesel responds that he has tried. He has endeavored to keep memory alive and to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are culpable, we are accomplices.

Wiesel swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings suffer and are humiliated. His words serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of bearing witness and taking a stand against injustice.

For such a short novel, which is just over 100 pages, there is an abundance of content packed within it.

There is a great deal of sadness, and this is something that one would anticipate.

I truly wish that I could have delved deeper and discovered more about Wiesel's family. What became of his mother and sisters? Did they manage to survive the horrors of Auschwitz?

Aside from this, this is an extremely important novel that every individual should read.

I am only dismayed that I did not come across it earlier, perhaps during my Middle School years, when it seemed as if everyone was reading "Night".

It is a work that has the power to move and educate, and it serves as a reminder of the atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust.

By reading this novel, we can gain a better understanding of the past and strive to ensure that such tragedies never happen again.

Backlist A Thon: Shortest backlist title

I'm going to make this concise as this book was truly disturbing.

Night is the account of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel's incarceration in Nazi concentration camps. Elie's entire family was brutally murdered by the abhorrent Nazis. Wiesel and the millions of other Holocaust survivors witnessed the absolute nadir of humanity and yet, miraculously, survived.

Night is a harrowing and grisly read, yet it is also of utmost importance. It serves as a stark reminder of the atrocities that took place during the Holocaust and the strength and resilience of the human spirit.

It is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the true horror of war and genocide and to pay tribute to the millions of innocent lives that were lost.

This powerful and poignant book will stay with you long after you have turned the last page.

I had postponed reading this story due to a plethora of reasons. Chief among them was my awareness of what lay ahead, and I was desperate to find an excuse to avoid it. Having visited the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany, the images of the now-idle ovens still haunt the recesses of my mind. Going back to that reality, through the words of someone who endured it, was not something I eagerly desired to do.

However, I summoned the courage and read it within a couple of days. The ending of the book took me by surprise, as I was completely engrossed. On the surface, I remained stoic while reading, with no emotion betraying my face, and I mostly read in solitude. But inside, it was a completely different story.

The world Wiesel creates is not a fictional realm but an echo of the real world he lived in, the world he witnessed being destroyed. The experiences he describes do not stem from research in books but from the scars on his skin and in his soul. At times, all I wanted was to放下 the book and never return to it. But that would be a great injustice to all those who passed through the fires of Hell and never returned, perhaps even more so to those who did and still bear the scars and carry the torch, crying out to the world to Never Forget.

At its core, Night is an intensely personal story that one does not have to be Jewish to understand. Being Jewish, however, enhances the understanding and makes the story incredibly relevant and compelling. Because as you read about all the horrors endured, you constantly remember that you are Jewish, that you are one of those targeted, one of those sent to the camps, one of those who, when the next Hitler emerges, will be at risk.

I can fathom why Wiesel claims that, among all the books he has written, Night still holds a special place in his heart and soul; it is likely the same place where he carved a niche for the story in the hearts of every reader.

You can't critique this book.

You have the option to like it or dislike it, but you are unable to rationalize the reasons behind your feelings.

Doing so would be an affront to the memory of this terrifying era and an insult to the individual who endured it and had the courage to cry out to the world against it.

The most you can manage is to read it and extract something meaningful from it.

You can never truly fathom the emotions that this book encapsulates, for the cost of understanding is death, perhaps not of the physical body but of the mind.

Read it and be aware that this was not a mere nightmare in a feverish mind; this was once upon a time a harsh reality, and in many respects, it still is.

It is incumbent upon us to learn from the past so that we can improve the future.

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. In a world filled with injustice and inequality, remaining neutral is not an option. It is a stance that unconsciously supports the forces of oppression. When we choose to be silent in the face of suffering, we are effectively giving the tormentor a free pass to continue their cruel deeds. We cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the pain and anguish of others. Action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all. We must actively speak out, stand up for what is right, and take steps to alleviate the suffering of those who are being oppressed. Only through our collective action can we hope to make a difference and create a more just and equitable world.”

I'm not going to bother with a synopsis.

Night was one of the most emotionally draining books I have ever read. I am probably one of the most emotional people out there.

So, when you mix an emotionally draining book like Night with an extremely emotional person like me, and it's a late night reading session, oh boy, the impact is profound.

Elie Wiesel truly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for his powerful and harrowing account in this book.

The experiences he describes are so heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching that they leave a lasting imprint on the reader's soul.

I'm going to escape the depression this book has caused me by going to bed now.

Maybe in sleep, I can find some respite from the heavy emotions that this book has stirred within me.

But I know that the lessons and the message of Night will stay with me forever.

What can I say about this book that hasn't been said better by Wiesel himself? It is truly powerful and moving.

My copy has his 1986 Nobel Acceptance Speech at the end, and it is remarkable how much of it applies to this moment in our history. The words seem almost prophetic, as if Wiesel had a premonition of the challenges and struggles that we would face today.

His speech is a call to action, a reminder that we must always speak out against injustice and oppression. It is a powerful testament to the human spirit and the ability to overcome even the most difficult of circumstances.

Reading this book and Wiesel's speech has been a deeply humbling and inspiring experience. It has made me realize the importance of standing up for what is right and fighting for a better world. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history, human rights, or simply wants to be inspired.

\\n  “Having survived, I needed to give some meaning to my survival”\\n

As a first-person memoir of Holocaust survival, NIGHT holds great power. However, it is not entirely unique, nor is it more compelling than numerous similar stories. It does not stand out for being uglier or more graphic. It does not demonstrate the evil of anti-Semitism and Hitler’s Final Solution to a greater extent than many other memoirs and novels in a genre filled with heartbreaking tales of privation, despair, suffering, and death. In fact, for a modern reader analyzing Wiesel’s memoir with hindsight, the most shocking detail of NIGHT is the Jews’ banal, unblinking acceptance of the creeping escalation of events. From police and military observation, through segregation and ghettoes, to concentration camps, pogroms, and outright genocidal slaughter, they failed to do anything but place their lives in the hands of fate. Their hope was that what was happening was not real and that tomorrow would be better. But for millions of Jews, tomorrow never came.

In the preface to this edition, Wiesel described himself as “ … a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory.” In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he expanded on these thoughts. “Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?” He made his life’s purpose clear: “I have tried to keep memory alive, … I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.” He also pointed out that human rights are being violated on every continent and provided specific examples such as Apartheid, the denial of Poland's Solidarity, racism in Chile and Ethiopia, and the violence in Palestine and the Gaza Strip.

If that speech were written and delivered today, Wiesel would surely have referred to Trump’s animosity towards Black Lives Matter and his explicitly racist anti-Hispanic and anti-Islamic immigration policies. The comparisons between Hitler and Trump’s rise to power and the Republican government’s attempts to install a theocratic authoritarian neo-Nazi Fourth Reich are too obvious to ignore. Wiesel was a rational observer. Sadly, he passed away in 2016, just four months before the American people elected Trump. His question, “How could the world remain silent?” is more relevant than ever. However, the Jewish diaspora and the state of Israel have been silent. If anyone should be protesting, it should be the Jews. But Netanyahu’s government continues to oppress the Palestinians, and the Jewish population in the US is doing nothing as Trump tightens his grip on power. In the end, Wiesel’s attempt to give meaning to his survival through NIGHT seems to have been in vain. The world is not listening.

Paul Weiss