Review: Night
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, occurs on January 27.
Is it important to learn about concentration camps and the like?
My opinion is - it is. Empires are created by ambitious people and somewhere in the quest one often finds exploitation rears its ugly head and we see people are treated unfairly whether it be by force, manipulation, or threat.
I've posted on this blog that as a youth I read The Diary of Anne Frank and more recently Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz. Since then, I have watched shows depicting life in concentration camps.
Reading accounts such as these teaches us about important things like our susceptibility, or resilience, and perseverance. It also conveys the anguish, confusion, and uncertainty that can occur during times when we are feeling vulnerable.
I purchased the book Night which states on the front cover that it has a new preface by the author Elie Wiesel. Wiesel prefaces it by telling readers if he had only one book to write in his lifetime this would be it.
As this is an autobiography, readers see what events Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel focused on. The chapters alternate “Before” and “During” his time in concentration camps.
The story begins with Hungary becoming an ally to Germany as they believed they would be getting back the land they had lost in World War I.
Moishe the Beadle warns Eliezer and others of the pending evil. He tells them of being made to dig graves for mass extermination and says the Nazis would come for them but most ignore Moshie the Beadle thinking he is mad.
Eliezer tried to talk his dad into leaving but his dad told him he was too old to leave this land. Hungarian authorities, under German influence, deported Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Eliezer's dad buries their gold and silver in the cellar before they are taken to the Holocaust cattle car.
In the cattle car, we see many parallels not only between the treatment of humans to cattle and Nazis to Jews but also by the prisoners beating Madame Schächter as her young son looks on. Her screams foreshadow the crematories at Auschwitz.
Eliezer quickly learns that the Nazis choose who is fit to work and who is not. His mother and younger sister are taken to the gas chamber on the night of their arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. His father and he were transported to Buchenwald. Eliezer was tattooed, like an animal, with an identity number A-7713.
Readers are witnesses to the struggle for survival, the sexual slavery, and the deplorable and unprecedented loss of life that is taking place.
Tragically, Eliezer last sees his dad on the night of Jan 28th, 1945. The camp was liberated on April 11, 1945.
The book is a ghastly autobiographical account of a teenager's survival in the Nazi death camp and readers learn that many times faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11.1
About the Author
Eliezer 'Elie' Wiesel was a Professor in Humanities at Boston University. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America Congressional Gold Medal, the French Legion of Honor, and, the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize for his work bearing witness to the Holocaust and for his efforts to combat indifference.