2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It is a significant milestone, yet it is also a reminder that over 6 million Jews were murdered, and even 75 years later, the Holocaust is still going on in a sense.

The number of those who remember the atrocities of Auschwitz is diminishing, and unfortunately, a resurgence of hate is beginning. We have already witnessed history repeating itself. Anti-semitism, islamophobia, xenophobia, and other hate-fueled acts of violence and discrimination are contemporary issues. From the mass-genocide of Rwanda in 1994 to recent concerns over the treatment of dissidents in North Korea, it is clear that the battle against such evils is not yet over.

The words in this piece, although perhaps not the most beautifully written or technically perfect, held a powerful ability. They made me question myself and humanity as a whole. The unadorned language added to the reality and tangibility of the account. It was like a mantra repeating in my head: "This is real. This happened." When confronted with such a harrowing truth, the mind often tries to shy away.

The physical horrors described in the book were abhorrent and grim, but what affected me the most were the psychological effects. As the author said, only those who experienced Auschwitz truly know what it was. This book, in just 120 pages, placed me in his mind and made me understand a whole new layer of human suffering. Seeing how a boy's mind could be twisted to celebrate his father's death was both harrowing and confronting. It raised uncomfortable questions. What would I do in such a situation? How could someone become so desperate as to murder their own father for a loaf of bread? How did they degrade people to a level where they had only their primal and animalistic instincts to rely on? How did they justify it to themselves? And how would I justify it to myself? I like to think that I could never do such a thing, but this book shows the deepest, darkest depths of humanity that we often try to hide from others and even from ourselves.

It is essential that we not only remember history but also learn from it. Hopefully, even after the last survivor has passed away, their lives, memories, and experiences will not be forgotten. We need to stop this from becoming a perpetual cycle of hate. We cannot stay silent. We need to remember. As Ellie Wiesel said, "For the youth of today, for the children of tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future." Here is a link to the article written by a teenage girl speaking about the importance of remembering the Holocaust, which profoundly impacted me and the writing of this review: https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment...

I chose this book as one of several Remembrance Day reads. I had just read Viktor Frankl’s Man's Search for Meaning before it. And although there are many similarities between the two works, there are also some interesting differences.

Reading about life in a concentration camp is truly a brutal experience. Frankl had certain advantages when he entered the system. He was a grown man and a psychiatrist, which meant he understood human behavior, both the good and the bad. He could make assessments that the teenage Wiesel wasn't able to. The truth is that anyone who survived the death camps had to do things that might seem selfish in order to survive. People who are starving simply don't have the emotional energy to spare to care about others. They become numb to both their own suffering and that of even their own family members. Knowing that other prisoners were in worse shape and could have used more help and/or sympathy left these survivors with terrible guilt. They felt that they were faulty human beings who should have done better. They witnessed horrible things and did things that they judged themselves for. It is absolutely no wonder that they had psychological issues for the rest of their lives.

Whereas Frankl emerged from Auschwitz with a renewed sense of purpose, Wiesel seems to have changed profoundly. From an innocent, religious, and scholarly young man, he became a crusader to preserve the memory of the Holocaust. This book is a powerful testament to his experience, his survival, and his important mission.

Elie Wiesel had a normal upbringing in Sighet, a small town in Transylvania. He lived there with his parents and younger sister.

However, in 1944, their lives took a tragic turn. After some time passed and hope faded that things would improve, they were herded into cattle trains, 100 people per car, and taken to Auschwitz. This marked the beginning of a nightmare for Elie.

Upon arrival, he immediately lost his mother and sister to the crematorium. Elie and his father endured almost the entire duration of their captivity in Auschwitz and Buchenwald together. But eventually, his father succumbed to the harsh conditions.

Malnutrition, dehydration, despair, and grief all took their toll. Elie was devastated that he couldn't save his father.

Elie's wife Marion has translated the latest edition of "Night," which was originally published in 1956. In it, Elie tells all he can remember: the horrors, degradation, sheer evil, hunger, and pain. His hope is that nothing of this magnitude will ever be repeated. This book is highly recommended.

“How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?” This is a deeply poignant question that lies at the heart of a heartbreaking first-person account of the Nazi concentration camps and the world that allowed them to occur. One of the many aspects that truly struck me in this book was the author's vivid description of the extreme difficulty Jews in Germany faced in believing, or even responding behaviorally to, the most horrendous warnings. Sometimes, the inaction stemmed from the feeling of being too old to start anew, as expressed by the author's father: “I am too old, my son … Too old to start a new life.” At other times, the extremity of the warnings themselves led to doubt.

“Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns … Jews, listen to me! That’s all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!” It is also astonishing how rapidly the author's family's situation deteriorated. They went from living in their home within society to being forcibly separated (the author and his father from his mother and sisters) and dispatched to concentration camps, where previously unfathomable horrors became an everyday reality. By the time it became evident that the warnings were accurate, it was already too late, as everything unfolded with terrifying speed.

“They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death.” The important quote “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” serves as a powerful reminder of the consequences of inaction and silence in the face of such atrocities.

First published in 1958, my copy of this remarkable work is in English. 'Night' is the poignant story of Eliezer (Elie), a son from a Jewish family of six.

It is firmly based on his harrowing experiences as a prisoner in the concentration camps, a period that lasted a little over a year, from March 1944 to April 1945, which marked the end of WWII.

At the tender age of 15 or 16, Eliezer and his family were thrust into the nightmare world of terror and horror. He was forced to endure the atrocities in some of the worst Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz and Buchenwald. His mother and sisters were sent to one camp, while his father and he were separated and sent to another. Elie, a loving son, managed to keep himself and his father together during such unbelievable treatment.

Reading “Night” has left me with a profound perspective on the unimaginable torture they had to endure and the depths of evil that men could sink to. I also found myself wondering, although I know I should not question why, how could one allow such monstrous events to occur to another human being? There are no easy answers. The harrowing year that he had to experience and the knowledge that he survived must have wracked him with guilt and heartache.

As Elie Wiesel so powerfully wrote, "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget..." This statement serves as a haunting reminder of the atrocities that took place and the lasting impact they had on those who lived through them.

What can I say that hasn't already been said?

This book is the newer translation, which features some clarifications regarding the chronology of people and events. It also includes introductions by Wiesel himself and Francois Mauriac, the man who fought to have the book published.

The prose is presented in a relatively simple style. After all, the story is dramatic enough that it requires no embellishment. It's as if you are observing the entire situation through a plate-glass window, and you're pounding on it, shouting, 'Hey, hey you, they're trying to kill you!' But unfortunately, no one can hear you. It took me several days to read this very thin book (approximately 120 pages), as it can be extremely difficult to endure - both emotionally and psychologically.

The astonishing aspect of this book is that it has never lost its ability to convey to us the horror of Nazi Germany, the Final Solution, and what men are capable of doing to other men for reasons that seem so insignificant. Countless analyses have been conducted, yet they yield little more than the understanding that humanity, if released from the constraints of decency, becomes a curse upon the planet.

And that is always something worth remembering.

Profound, heartbreaking, and relevant to every generation,

no matter how much time has passed. The emotions it evokes are so intense that they can bring tears to one's eyes.

It makes us reflect on the mistakes and tragedies of the past,

and hope that history does not repeat itself.

My heart hurts deeply when I think about these things,

and I truly hope that these tragedies never occur again.

We should learn from the past and work towards a better future,

where such heartbreaking events are nothing but a distant memory.

Let us strive to make the world a more peaceful and just place,

so that future generations can live without the fear of experiencing such profound sorrow.

The author, in this account of his experience during the Holocaust, did not waste time with any useless filler.

He cut right to the chase, presenting the facts in a straightforward and unadorned manner.

And the point that he makes is truly horrifying.

It is stories such as this one that must be etched in our memories if humanity ever hopes to progress beyond our all-too-frequent tendencies towards war, murder, and hatred.

We cannot afford to forget the atrocities of the past, for only by remembering can we hope to learn from them and ensure that such horrors are never repeated.

These stories serve as a powerful reminder of the consequences of our actions and the importance of working towards a more peaceful and just world.

Elie Wiesel was only sixteen years old when, in May 1944, his family and the entire Jewish community living in Sighet, a small town in Transylvania, were first forced to stay in the ghetto and, a few days later, were deported in a cattle train bound for one of the extermination camps in Poland.

Elie Wiesel was only sixteen years old when, at the entrance of Auschwitz-Birkenau, he was separated from his mother and sisters, not yet knowing that in that place he would lose his mother and his youngest sister Judith forever.

Elie Wiesel was only sixteen years old (and they were made to say he was eighteen, perhaps to save him from the crematorium) when, with his father by his side, he crossed the gate of death.

“I will never forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. I will never forget that smoke. I will never forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. I will never forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. I will never forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. I will never forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. I will never forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, Elie Wiesel refused for more than ten years after the war to write or speak about his experiences during the Holocaust. However, his encounter with the French writer François Mauriac, who saw in the face of the young Israeli, “the gaze of Lazarus risen from the dead”, was decisive: Elie Wiesel felt that he had to bear witness for the victims of History, even if the words to tell the last journey in the sealed wagons to the unknown, the extermination of an entire family and an entire community, and the daily horrors in the struggle for survival in a cold and senseless world, “where it was human to be inhuman”, are poor, powerless and pale.

Written in Yiddish, the mother tongue of the author, in a text that in its original form (under the title “And the World Remained Silent”) numbers around 900 pages, Night does not define only the core of Wiesel's literary work, but something much greater: a cry against the silence of God, an “I accuse” with Humanity as the defendant, and an important lesson of historical memory.

[On the occasion of January 27th, the Day of Remembrance of the Greek Jewish Martyrs and Heroes of the Holocaust]

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.


I randomly picked up this book from the library solely because it seemed short, and I was in the mood for a quick and effortless read. I had never even heard of it before, so I had no inkling of what I was about to embark upon. Oh boy, was I in for a surprise! This book was anything but an easy read. Indeed, it was short in terms of page count, but it felt anything but short in its impact. By the end, I had the distinct impression that I had devoured a book of at least 500 pages.

Night is Elie Wiesel's poignant biography chronicling his harrowing experiences in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. After completing this book, I was left completely dumbfounded. If reading about these atrocities was this difficult, I simply cannot fathom how excruciating it must have been to live through them. Reading fictional books about WW2 can be hard, but at least you know that, despite being based on true events, they are still fictional. However, knowing that this book was a non-fiction historical account written by a man who endured all those horrors was just... heart-wrenching. And I truly believe that nothing I could ever say would adequately convey how stupid and senseless I think WW2 was, and how foolish the people were, and how, no matter how many terrible things occur, we seem to never learn from them. Just as the author so aptly said, \\"... the world forgets quickly.\\" History is doomed to repeat itself, over and over again, and there seems to be very little we can do about it.

Now that I've rambled on for 5 - 10 minutes, I'm going to bring this review (or whatever it may be) to a close here by saying that if you haven't read this book yet, please do yourself a favor and pick it up. This is one of those rare books that every single person alive should read, at least once in their lifetime.

I finally headed to DC and checked out the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was an absolutely phenomenal and scarring experience. I witnessed unspeakable horrors there, but it was also a wonderful confirmation that the terrors the Jewish people endured from 1933 - 1945 will never be forgotten. Again,

please read this book.

Night is truly incredible. It might be the most horrifying book I've ever read, more scarring than those that made me cry in the middle of the night. This is because I can't excuse actions just because they are words on a page.

No. These words resemble something real, something that I haven't learned about in my admittedly short time on earth. The Holocaust was a hushed part of history where I grew up, in America. I'm not blaming the government for my lack of knowledge about this event, but I do sometimes wonder why my education never brought it up.

Throughout my reading of this book, one of the ideas I kept questioning was morals and their objectivity. A moral is objective. It's one of the reasons why good people do bad things. In their eyes, the explanation is deceptively simple: it's the right thing to do. The idea that a good thing, person, or thought is obvious was instantly shattered upon reading. Elie explores this aspect of humanity in Night through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old boy.

The only time I should've ever been exposed to gruesomeness was in the pages of my literary devices. This is what Elie states in his 2006 forward before pouring out the memories locked away in his brain. The themes in this book are violent, disturbing, and human. Bottom line: everybody should read this book. That's it. If you have the courage, do it.

(I will not be rating it, but consider it the equivalent of 5 stars. I don't feel right rating something like this, but that's just my personal opinion.)

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Status updates are disabled, so I'm recording my thoughts here.

D1 - Women, children…thrown into graves moments ago dug by themselves…Elie describes pain so intense that it overwhelms the reader's senses. How can humanity be so inhumane?

D3 - My faceless neighbor spoke up: his cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily: "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people." I accidentally flipped to a random page of this book last night, and I wanted to share that this quote represents the suffering, so great that even death could be seen as something twistedly optimistic.

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After reading this book, I hope to be a little less uninformed about the horrors that occurred in Germany from 1933 - 1945. My education never covered this inhumane part of human history, so I've started learning about it rather late, but better late than never.

Night by Elie Wiesel is not only one of the definitive works on Holocaust literature, but it is also one of the most definitive works on humanity.

This book is a factual record of Wiesel's experiences from 1941, when he was just 12 years old, dedicated to learning Talmud and thirsting to learn Kaballah, until his experiences after Jews were forced into ghettoes and then transported to the death camps.

Written in Yiddish in 1958 and translated into English in 1960, it chronicles Wiesel's childhood in the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. It is a tribute to the memory of his parents and his little sister Tzipora, who were brutally murdered in the Nazi inferno.

The book is a stark record of everything the author witnessed, raising many questions for which answers are hard to come by. It tells of Wiesel's vow with a friend in the camp to emigrate to the Land of Israel if they survived, a dream shared by millions who perished or endured the Shoah.

Perhaps the most harrowing and moving account in the book is when the author reveals how, on the first night in Auschwitz, he and his father waited in line to be thrown into a firepit. He watched a lorry pull up beside the pit and unload its cargo of children into the flames. As his father recited the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

Ever since this book became known, Elie Wiesel has been a voice of conscience in the world. He authored many other bestsellers and his Elie Wiesel Foundation For Human Rights has done invaluable work in this field for many years.

In a plea for the plight of his own people today, especially the youth and children of Israel targeted by terror and forces of genocide, he wrote an open letter to President Bush, stating: "Please remember that the maps on Arafat's uniform and in Palestinian children's textbooks show a Palestine encompassing not only all of the West Bank but all of Israel, while Palestinian leaders loudly proclaim that 'Palestine extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, from Rosh Hanikra (in the North) to Rafah (in Gaza). Please remember Danielle Shefi, a little girl in Israel. Danielle was five. When the murderers came, she hid under her bed. Palestinian gunmen found and killed her anyway. Think of all the other victims of terror in the Holy Land. With rare exceptions, the targets were young people, children and families. Please remember that Israel--having lost too many sons and daughters, mothers and fathers--desperately wants peace. It has learned to trust its enemies' threats more than the empty promises of 'neutral' governments."

Elie Wiesel was truly a voice of truth and conscience.