Reread for class January 2015

I just cannot provide a star rating for this book. It's one of the hardest and scariest books I've ever had to read. There are really no words to describe this so I'm not even going to try.

The horror that humans can afflict upon each other for any little crazy thing or thought or desire makes me sick to my stomach. I could not put this book down. The fact that this mass murder of a segment of society is a true story tells us a great deal about our species and what we are truly capable of when given into madness. Hitler was indeed a horribly sick man.

Elie Wiesel grew up in Sighet, a small town in Transylvania with his parents and younger sister. It was 1944 when, after some time, and with fading hope that things would be alright, they were taken by cattle train, 100 per car, to Auschwitz and Elie’s life would never be the same again. He immediately lost his mother and sister to the crematorium and spent almost the duration of his and his father’s time in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, together, until his father finally died. Malnutrition, dehydration, despair, grief – it all contributed, but Elie was devastated that he hadn’t been able to save his father.

Elie’s wife Marion has translated this latest edition of Night - the original was published back in 1956 - telling all he could remember; the horrors and degradation, the sheer evil, the hunger and pain – all in the hope that nothing of this magnitude could ever be replayed. Recommended.

I’ve read enough on the Holocaust that I never felt great pull to read this testimony. But it called to me this winter, and I was glad I answered. It is a slim volume that bears witness to Wiesel’s family being confined by the Nazis to a ghetto in their town in Transylvania and later his separation from his mother and sisters and confinement with his father at the camp in Auschwitz. There the teenager struggles unsuccessfully to save his father. All the wisdom and hopefulness instilled by his Rabbi turns to ashes in the dog-eat-dog world of life on the cruel edge of survival.

The vignettes of his existence in the camp are spare and unflinching, but they do not tell you what to feel. That is part of the power of this writing, which he didn’t take up for more than ten years afterward. The elements of humanity in his fellow prisoners seem to become rarer in the face of hunger, cold, and pervasive death. Toward the end, Wiesel can’t help but see the dark truth in advice from another prisoner:
Here every man has to fight for himself and not to think of anyone else. Even of his father. Everyone lives and dies for himself alone.

After the liberation of the Buchenwald camp where he ended up, Wiesel doesn’t think of revenge but how to face himself:
From the depths of the mirror a corpse gazed back at me.
The look in the eyes, as they stared into mine has never left me.

This is one of the most commonly read books among my Goodreads friends. But it appears that two-thirds of you, like me, have put off reading it. Out of my feeling that this wasn’t just the outcome for the Jews at the hands of an alien, twisted segment of our species, but something that all humans need to take ownership for, I urge more of you to read this.

The gods
the godliness of whom
died long ago
made you a joke.







Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind?
-tElie Wiesel


The above-mentioned lines by Elie Wiesel reminds me of what George Orwell said in his essay Why I Write that one would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. The statements by both authors essentially complements each other since it’s inner demon of one which force one to express oneself; and what greater demon could it be than a madness of humanity, one of the slurs on human existence- we famously call as genocide. Amidst the CoVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been trying to pick up books which show bleakness, absurdity, horror and madness of human existence, in this regard Blindness by Jose Saramago presented itself as one of best options. Though I’m still trying to come to terms with Blindness as I’ve yet to reach the core of it; but, one day, my eyes accidentally fell upon Night which has been basking in the dust of laziness and ignorance for a fairly long time. It came upon me that what better occasion could be than right now to expose myself to the testimony of horrendous acts of humanity; in fact such books do not need any occasions at all, for they are for every occasion, as essential as any other treatises.

n  Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never. n


The eminent sheath of humanity is slurred with many insinuations right from its birth itself, as we gain more experience by our holy sojourn through the grand fabric of time-space, the more defamed we get; and these arduous incidents should discourage the humanity to repeat those but invariably we traverse the same paths which have been trodden before. Perhaps that’s where come our greatest piece of war literature into existence. Having lived through such experiences, one could not keep silent no matter how difficult, if not impossible, it is to speak because an action is the only remedy to indifference. The witness forces himself to testify. For the youth of today, children who will be born tomorrow, he does not want his past to become their future. Having survived such those brazen and unabashed events, the witness needs to give his survival meaning, though he/ she might have braved through circumstances which do not make sense but his/ her account of that survival may certainly impart sense to humanity for its sake. And who better witness could be than Elie Wiesel, for he did complete justice with the role humanity accorded to him.

The idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate me. To no longer exist. To no longer feel the excruciating pain of my foot. To longer feel anything, neither fatigue nor cold, nothing. To break rank, to let myself slide to the side of the road….



Night shows you excruciating life wherein people of a particular ethnicity no longer hold right to survive, their very existence becomes null and void; and they are reduced to just numbers, and nothing more. They are smoldered in the hell of nothingness, the cries of their unaccomplished existence fall on the deaf ears of the dominant creatures of nether world, who do not resemble human beings, we know them. They are the brave killing machines of a demented and glacial universe where to be inhuman was human, the primordial soup of such universe demands innocent children, helpless women and weary old men as fuel to traverse on the great thread of time-space. Yet, the ironical and revolting part is that such places are from our planet itself; these stomach-churning and disgusting microcosms of life had lived through our glorious but not so distant past. The memories of those still come back from the deep cervices of time and gnaw at us in the present (perhaps would do same in the future) so that we may be ashamed of our deeds in time bygone, so that the very humiliation may demoralize us to repeat our great acts of past.

We had already lived through a lot that night. We thought that nothing could frighten us anymore. But his harsh words sent shivers through us. The word “chimney” here was not as an abstraction; it floated in the air, mingled with the smoke. It was, perhaps, the only word that had a real meaning in this place.

I pinched myself: Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent? No. All this could not be real. A nightmare perhaps….Soon I would wake up with a start, my heart pounding, and find that I was back in the room of my childhood, with my books…

In just over 100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about the death of God and
his own increasing disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of the parent–child relationship, as his father declines to a helpless state and Wiesel becomes his resentful teenage caregiver. If only I could get rid of this dead weight ... Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever." In Night everything is inverted, every value destroyed. "Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends", a Kapo tells him. "Everyone lives and dies for himself alone.” In unsentimental detail, “Night” recounts daily life in the camps, the never-ending hunger, the sadistic doctors who pulled gold teeth, the Kapos who beat fellow Jews. On his first day in the camps, Wiesel was separated forever from his mother and sister. At Auschwitz, he watched his father slowly succumb to dysentery before the SS beat him to within an inch of his life. Wiesel writes honestly about his guilty relief at his father’s death. In the camps, the formerly observant boy underwent a profound crisis of faith; “Night” was one of the first books to raise the question: where was God at Auschwitz?

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. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger.



Some of us would say that it is concerned with those who have gone through it, those who belong to that specific ethnicity, but that shows their myopic comprehension of humanity only. When human lives are dangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, (caste, in Indian perspective), religion or political views, that place must- at that moment- become the center of the universe. Since human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. We see that not only those men, women and children have been targeted but their culture, their religion and traditions have been systematically obliterated so that the very memory of those men/ women may be erased from the history of human civilization. But their reminiscence upsurge from dark pages of the bygone days to rejuvenate their existence, as nature usually do, thanks to courageous people such as Elie Wiesel.


Elie Wiesel has written the book with such objectivity that it appears to be an essay which may be applicable to most of the horrendous acts of humanity- be it racism, casteism, misogyny, apartheid or Holocaust. There is so much to be done, even now. We must remember that when our past asks us what we have done with its future and what we have done to make sure that it needs not ask the very question again in future. Elie Wiesel puts it perfectly- As long as one dissident is in prison, or freedom not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lie will be filled with anguish and shame. . It’s been a while since I read a book which may leave such profound impact on our consciousness as this little beauty by Elie Wiesel does. The language of the book is quite simple but the author and the translator (author’s wife) managed to conjure up vivid and visceral narrative with economy of words. The cries of children, feebleness of their parents and heart wrenching scenes of the Holocaust makes you feel nauseating and bring out all your commiseration, which makes it perhaps a difficult book to be read. It is equally challenging to review the book, for it is quite strenuous task to classify it on the very first place-whether to call it autobiographical novel, memoir or non-fiction. Nonetheless, the book remains as relevant today as it was then and for everyone, irrespective of the fact that how aware you are about these ‘great’ deeds of mankind.

For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is ? This is where- hanging here from this gallows...

4.75/5

finally headed to dc and checked out the holocaust memorial museum. absolutely phenomenal and scarring experience. i saw unspeakable horrors, but it was a wonderful confirmation that the terrors jewish people went through from 1933-45 will never be forgotten. again, please read this book.

night is incredible. it may be the most horrifying book i've ever read, more scarring than the ones that made me cry in the middle of the night [i.e. horror], because i can't excuse actions simply because they are merely words on pages.

no. these words resemble something, something that i haven't learned about in my admittedly small time on earth. the holocaust was a hushed part of history where i grew up, in america. i'm not saying it's "the government's fault" i never learned about this event, but i do sometimes question why my education never brought it up.

throughout my time with this book, one of the ideas i kept questioning were 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 deceivingly simple: it's the right thing to do. the 2d idea that a good thing, person, or thought is obvious was instantly shattered upon reading. elie explores this 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 behind the locked doors of 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 it in you, do it.

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

------------
status updates are disabled so recording my thoughts here.

d1 - women, children…thrown into graves moments ago dug by themselves…elie puts into words pain so poignant, it clouds 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, but i wanted to share that this quote is at least a representation of the suffering, so horrible, that even death was something that could be turned into something twistedly optimistic.

---
after reading this book, i hope to be a little less exceptionally uninformed about the horrors that raged in germany from 1933-45. my education never approached this inhumane part of human history, so i’ve begun to learn about this rather late, but better late than never.

Ο Ελιέζερ (Ελί) Βιζέλ ήταν μόλις δεκαέξι χρονών όταν, τον Μάιο του 1944, υποχρέωσαν την οικογένειά του και όλη την εβραϊκή κοινότητα που κατοικούσε στο Σιγκέτ, μια μικρή πόλη στην Τρανσυλβανία, να παραμείνουν αρχικά στο γκέτο και, μερικές ημέρες μετά, να επιβιβαστούν σε μια αμαξοστοιχία που προοριζόταν για τη μεταφορά ζώων, με κατεύθυνση ένα από τα στρατόπεδα εξόντωσης στην Πολωνία.

Ο Ελιέζερ Βιζέλ ήταν μόλις δεκαέξι χρονών όταν, στην είσοδο του Άουσβιτς – Μπιρκενάου αποχωρίστηκε τη μάνα του και τις αδελφές του, αγνοώντας τότε ακόμη ότι σ’ εκείνον τον τόπο θα έχανε για πάντα τόσο τη μάνα του, όσο και τη μικρότερη αδελφή του Ιουδήθ.

Ο Ελιέζερ Βιζέλ ήταν μόλις δεκαέξι χρονών (κι ας τον ορμήνεψαν να λέει ότι είναι δεκαοκτώ, μήπως γλιτώσει το κρεματόριο) όταν, με τον πατέρα του αντάμα, διαβήκανε την πύλη του θανάτου.

“Ποτέ δεν θα ξεχάσω εκείνη τη νύχτα, την πρώτη νύχτα που πέρασα στο στρατόπεδο, που μετέτρεψε όλη μου τη ζωή σε μια μακριά, επτασφράγιστη νύχτα. Ποτέ δεν θα ξεχάσω εκείνο τον καπνό. Ποτέ δεν θα ξεχάσω τα προσωπάκια των παιδιών που ‘χα δει τα κορμάκια τους να μετατρέπονται σε τολύπες καπνού κάτω από το βουβό γαλάζιο τ’ ουρανού, Ποτέ δεν θα ξεχάσω εκείνες τις φλόγες που έκαψαν για πάντα την πίστη μου. Ποτέ δεν θα ξεχάσω εκείνες τις στιγμές που σκότωσαν τον Θεό μου, την ψυχή μου και τα όνειρά μου, τα οποία πήραν την όψη της ερήμου. Ποτέ δεν θα ξεχάσω όλα αυτά, ακόμα κι αν με καταδίκαζαν να ζήσω όσους αιώνες ζει και ο Θεός. Ποτέ.”

Βραβευμένος με το Νόμπελ Ειρήνης το 1986, ο Ελί Βιζέλ αρνιόταν για περισσότερα από δέκα χρόνια μετά τον πόλεμο, να γράψει ή να μιλήσει για τις εμπειρίες του κατά το Ολοκαύτωμα. Η συνάντησή του με τον Γάλλο συγγραφέα Φρανσουά Μωριάκ, όμως, που είδε στο πρόσωπο του νεαρού Ισραηλινού, «το βλέμμα αναστημένου Λαζάρου», ήταν καθοριστική: ο Ελί Βιζέλ ένιωσε ότι έπρεπε να καταθέσει τη μαρτυρία του για τα θύματα της Ιστορίας, όσο κι αν οι λέξεις για να διηγηθεί το τελευταίο ταξίδι με τα σφραγισμένα βαγόνια προς το άγνωστο, το ξεκλήρισμα μιας ολόκληρης οικογένειας και μιας ολόκληρης κοινότητας, και τις καθημερινές φρικαλεότητες στον αγώνα για επιβίωση σ’ έναν κόσμο ψυχρό και παράλογο, «όπου ανθρώπινο ήταν να είσαι απάνθρωπος», είναι φτωχές, αδύναμες και χλωμές.

Γραμμένη στα γίντις, τη μητρική γλώσσα του συγγραφέα, σ’ ένα κείμενο που στην πρωτότυπη μορφή του (υπό τον τίτλο «Και ο κόσμος παρέμεινε σιωπηλός») αριθμεί περί τις 900 σελίδες, η Νύχτα δεν ορίζει απλά τον πυρήνα του συγγραφικού έργου του Βιζέλ, αλλά κάτι πολύ μεγαλύτερο: μια κραυγή απέναντι στη σιωπή του Θεού, ένα ‘κατηγορώ’ με αποδέκτη τον Άνθρωπο, κι ένα σπουδαίο μάθημα ιστορικής μνήμης.

[Επ’ αφορμή της 27ης Ιανουαρίου, ημέρας μνήμης των Ελλήνων Εβραίων μαρτύρων και ηρώων του Ολοκαυτώματος]

''The night had passed completely. The morning star shone in the sky. I too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been consumed by the flames. All that was left was a shape that resembled me. My soul had been invaded—and devoured—by a black flame.''

Beautiful and devastating work. I applaud Elie Wiesel for having the courage to describe traumatic experiences in such an intimate and honest way, not shying away from the dark part of human nature that can come through in such inhumane circumstances. Description of the relationship with his father during the imprisonment has great psychological depth, and it felt like this was something deeply personal, that person would be able to say only to a confidant. The level of consciousness of Elie's processes in psyche and spirit at such a young age amazes me. He describes the anger, the loss of faith, the despair and estrangement painfully accurately.

''I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. 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. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger.''

It reminded me of the first part of Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, which is a great compliment to Wiesel, concerning the fact Frankl was a grown man, a doctor and a psychiatrist during the time of imprisonment. In comparison to Frankl's work, the writing has less emotional warmth and is more direct, which I think reflects greatly the mechanisms of defense through dissociation, often seen in trauma, especially at a young age.

''The absent no longer entered our thoughts. One spoke of them—who knows what happened to them?—but their fate was not on our minds. We were incapable of thinking. Our senses were numbed, everything was fading into a fog. We no longer clung to anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us. In one terrifying moment of lucidity, I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void, souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either.''

I've read that there is great work also from Primo Levi about the experience of concentration camps that I want to read in the future. I don't know why, but I find writing about the experiences of concentration camps hypnotic, when I start reading about it I can't stop, no matter the level of emotional distress it produces in me. It is both deeply tragic and encouraging - seeing people going through hell on earth and still prevailing, still maintaining and even growing spiritual and psychological strength. I still remember the deep impact Man's search for meaning had on me, truly life-changing. Night maybe does not have such evident silver lining as Man’s search for meaning, but I found it equally cathartic. Both Wiesel and Frankl are immense gifts for humanity, and it breaks my heart when to think about how many voices perished because of the horrors of the Holocaust. Their experience isn't just personal, they made it universal, transpersonal, and transcendental in their writing with healing potential, showing the path of light exists even in the darkest ages.

I teach this book yearly, but my students seemed distant from the true reality of the story. When I use the Holocaust Museum's interactive of Lola Rein's dress, it hits them. Real people, real history. The immediacy of the tragedy that was Wiesel's then comes to life in a way that a junior or senior can grasp. I also tell the story of my friend, Ida, and her "no grandparents". That is the hardest part for me as it is so personal. She was the daughter of survivors - she had no grandparents and I gave her mine. The sharing of my friend with my beloved grandmother and grandfather was one of the true blessings of my life and our lives were enriched through the immense addition to our family. I was also blessed by her adding us to her home and her celebrations. My faith was enlarged. This is a powerful book - a simple one to read, but a difficult one to comprehend. Engagingly written and honest to the core - even the difficult, prickly human parts that would embarrass anyone to reveal -- this is the heart of humanity's difficult path - how do we grow if we can't love one another for the similarities and the differences. I wish I could say there was no more genocide, but that would be a dreamer's lie. Bless this with a read and light a candle in our darkness. Also, go and view the dress at the Holocaust Museum website - you will leave changed.

Upon completion of this book, my mind is as numb as if I had experienced this suffering myself. So much pain and suffering are thrown at you from the pages that one cannot comprehend it all in the right perspective. One can only move forward as the victims in this book did. Step by step, page by page. Initially, numbness is the only way to deal with such anguish.
Otherwise one becomes quickly overwhelmed by the images that evoke questions that cannot be answered.
And yet, I read this book from the comfort of a warm home and a full stomach. Imagine the impact if it were otherwise. Imagine being forced from your home to live in barracks, living off soup and bread, forced to go outside in the winter without a jacket, and perform manual labor from dawn to dusk with the smell of a crematorium in your backyard.
How many of us could endure this for just one day, let alone, for years? What would this do to us physically and more important, what would this do to us mentally? Yet, we witness in this book the miracle of the prisoner's survival. The strength and raw endurance of the human spirit. We must be reminded of this this glorious strength, but also reminded that it was the weakness of the human spirit that inflicted these crimes on others.
Humanity has the capability of extreme strength, but also of extreme weakness (which often hides under the guise of self-righteousness and need for power over others). This book is necessary in order to remind us of this. These things must not be forgotten. Read this book even if you think you have read enough of the Holocaust and of pain and suffering. Every book that I have read about the Holocaust offers something new including this one. Read it as a memorial and a tribute. Read it as a reminder of how fortunate we are to have a free society and how we must preserve this freedom at all costs. There are those who would like to take it away. Fascism is alive and well.
I started reading Holocaust novels after reading Edelweiss Pirates ‘Operation Einstein'. (Edelweiss Pirates #1) [bookcover:(Edelweiss Pirates #1) ‘Operation Einstein' n  n they are must reads in this genre are of course Number the Stars n  n Number the stars.
I enjoyed that authors other works. That novel was 'The Book' that turned me onto YA WW2 novels. They allow us to reflect on our own lives, learn history and become better people in general.

This book has garnered so many five-star reviews and deals with such important subject matter that it almost feels like an act of heresy to give it a mere four stars. Yet that is exactly what I'm going to do, for while Night is a chilling account of the Holocaust and the dehumanisation and brutalisation of the human spirit under extreme circumstances, the fact remains that I've read better ones. Better written ones, and more insightful ones, too.

Night is Elie Wiesel's somewhat fictionalised account of the year he spent at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. It's a chilling story about his experiences in and between concentration camps, his gradual loss of faith (he was a very observant Jew who obviously wondered where God was while his people were being exterminated), and his feelings of guilt when he realised that his struggle for survival was making him insensitive towards his dying father. It's gruesome, chilling material, and I felt very quiet after having read it. Yet I also felt vaguely unsatisfied with the book. I wanted more detail. I wanted fleshed-out writing rather than a succession of meaningful one-line paragraphs. I wanted less heavy-handed symbolism (the book very much centres on troubled father-and-son relationships, to echo the one central Father-and-Son one) and more actual feeling. I wanted a writer (and a translator) who knew better than to call an SS officer 'an SS'. And most of all, I wanted a less abrupt ending. I wanted to ask Wiesel what happened in the immediate aftermath of the liberation of Buchenwald. I wanted to ask him what happened to his leg, on which he marched for several gruesome days just days after having undergone an operation, and how he picked up the pieces afterwards, and why on earth his two eldest sisters, who died in Auschwitz as well as his mother and younger sister, never warranted more than a single mention. The latter was an example of seriously shoddy writing, I thought.

Perhaps my questions were answered in the original version of Night, which never got published. In his introduction to the new English translation of Night, Wiesel mentions that the book as it is today is a severely abridged version of a much longer Yiddish original called And the World Remained Silent. I think I can see why the original wasn't published (quite apart from the fact that the world wasn't ready yet for concentration camp literature, the few quotes provided in the introduction make for heavy reading). The abridged version definitely seems more readable than the full-length one, and does an admirable job getting the facts across. Even so, I think the publishers might have gone a step too far in abridging the book to the extent that they did. No doubt the very brevity of Night is one of the reasons why it's so popular today, but personally, I would have liked to see a middle road between the original (detailed) manuscript and the incredibly spare barebones version sold now. Don't get me wrong, the abridged version is effective, but as far as I'm concerned, it's the Holocaust for people with short attention spans. I prefer Primo Levi and Ella Lingens-Reiner's more complete accounts of life in the camps myself, not to mention several Dutch books which sadly never got translated into other languages.

But still. Night is an important book, and one that deserves to be widely read. In fact, one that should be widely read, by people of all ages and nationalities, to prevent nightmare like this ever happening again.

July 2, 2016: On hearing of the passing of Elie Wiesel, President Obama, who visited the site of the Buchenwald concentration camp with Wiesel in 2009, said "He raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all its forms. He implored each of us, as nations and as human beings, to do the same, to see ourselves in each other and to make real that pledge of 'never again.' "
I first read this book about 40 years ago and it has stayed with me ever since. When I heard the sad news I decided it was time to drop what I was reading and refresh my memory of Wiesel's seminal holocaust memoir. As he says in his preface to the new edition, we all have a "moral obligation to try and prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory." As some people drink to forget, I read to remember.

Eliezer Wiesel's memoir sits with Anne Frank's diary at the top of the list of must-read books about the holocaust. While Frank puts a human face on those who died, Wiesel, as one who witnessed and endured the horrors of the holocaust takes the stand and testifies with heartbreaking eloquence of all that he saw and suffered.

Much of Wiesel’s eloquence is in its brevity. In little more than 100 pages he dishes up one of the most powerful indictments of Hitler’s Final Solution ever written.

“Men to the left! Women to the right!”
Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words.
Yet that was the moment I left my mother.

Wow. In 28 words he consigns over half his family to the crematorium. No emotion. No blubber. Yet nothing he could have said could have made the reader feel more keenly the horror of the event.

The part of his story that chills me the most is not the constant death but how easily the inmates’ tormenters were able to dehumanize them. What is worse; to kill a man or to turn him into someone who would kill his own father for a crust of bread? Yet Wiesel manages to remind us that even in the depths of Hell, there is room for a touch of the sublime.

Those were my thoughts when I heard the sound of a violin. A violin in a dark barrack where the dead were piled on top of the living?

It had to be Juliek.

He was playing a fragment of a Beethoven concerto. Never before had I heard such a beautiful sound. In such silence.

I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men.

The 2006 revision of the book includes a new preface by Wiesel and, at the end, the acceptance speech when he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In it he said

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.

t
Although Elie Wiesel is no longer with us, his words, his testimony, will live on. Jewish tradition teaches us that we are never really dead until there is no one who remembers us. Let us hope that Eliezer Wiesel stays with us for a long, long, time.