"Night" is Unforgettable!

Books about the Holocaust are never easy to read. Some are downright terrifying and others make a reader nauseous at the sheer brutality. Due to a fascination that I have about the Holocaust, I endeavor to learn as much as I can about it. Just a short list of Holocaust Literature I've read is: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, Aimée & Jaguar, Schindler's Ark (aka Schindler's List), The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Book Thief, and a whole host of others. Mostly I am attempting to figure out how something like the extermination of millions of people could have ever happened. But how do you explain the inexplicable? Truth be told, you can't and yet I still try. I just finished reading the memoir, Night (1960) by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner, Elie Wiesel.

Synopsis:  Night is a Wiesel's memoir about his experience in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. The year is 1941 when Elie, the deeply religious boy with a loving family consisting of three sisters and parents, is taken from home and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie is separated from family members (mother and sisters), but remains with his father, only to be transferred from camp to camp. Through their perilous journey, Elie tells about the death of family members, the death of his own innocence, the death of his belief in God, and his suffering to a point in which life and death does not matter anymore.

Review: At 115 pages, Night is a fast yet grueling read. Wiesel's writing is at once eloquent and harrowing and his descriptions of survival through the camps at Auschwitz, Buna, Birkenau, and Buchenwald become searingly imprinted on the mind of the reader. Readers may think these facts are redundant but they can never be retold often enough. The book concludes with Wiesel's 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech which acts as a reminder that we are bound by humanity to fight against the hate that festers in this world.

Steeped in controversy, Night is a haunting, frightening read. Is it 100% accurate? I doubt it, but does that take away the impact of the writing. It does not. After all, this book is often required reading in English classes, not history.  If you have never read this book, take a couple of hours out of your day to read it. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:  5 out of 5 stars