Night by Elie Wiesel

Reviewed by Nysha T.

"Night" meaning the darkness the memorist was living, in the harsh conditions of the Holocaust. The concentration camps. Caved in, with no way out, that place locks you, your mind, away from the world--none of them knowing what goes on behind the heavy iron gates.

This is the memoir of Elie Wiesel. A Jew, from Sighet, Trasylvania, who tells us his terrifying story about being transported to and trapped in the wrath of concentration camps with his father during his teenage years.

Separated from his mother and sisters, it is a vivid narrative depicted through the observant eyes of a boy in a way where you know the treatment of people, how they lived, the pain they faced, stringed with powerful words and thoughts.

He came to realize being kept away from humanity, and getting beaten, the fear of it happening again can numb your emotions. It numbed the memorist's belief in his god as he grew questioning what He can really do. It numbs till the only thing you think of is your ration of food and living for yourself--not for anyone else.

I think it is painful to know how life was like in a concentration camp. (If it would be called a “life.”). It has gripped me with a painful respect to the people who have survived such a horrific experience. It is the revalation of what goes on behind the gates. How some were forced to do things that can erase their emotions. And how some, through all these sufferings, sometimes succumbed to insanity, and death.

LINES THAT YOU LOVED.:

"How long had we been standing on the freezing wind? One hour? A single hour? Sixty minutes?

Surely it was a dream." (Page 37)

"All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. He played that which he would never play again." (Page 95)