Night
Author: Elie Wiesel
Plot: Night is a 1960 memoir by Elie Wiesel based on his Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, toward the end of the Second World War in Europe. (Wikipedia)
My Review and Thoughts:
"I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name."----Elie Wiesel
If ever there was a book that should be required reading or a book that should be remembered and taught to every generation it is Night.
Night is what one can call a beating heart on pages.
Night is the very recesses of emotions and actions upon the comprehension of what life and death is about. Night displays a disturbingly historical evil that once came to power. That power sadly still remains today in hate and racism and antisemitism. But there was a time not that long ago that men, women and children were brutally slaughtered and tortured and systematically erased, all because of who they were.
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Never Shall I forget that Night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget that 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 my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never
----Page 34
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Night is a book that lingers in your thoughts and the very crevices of daily life, it will haunt you. It will numb you. It will open the darkness to your subconscious. Night is a book that should not be taken lightly. Night is what a historical reality bleeding off the pages is all about.
Elie Wiesel gave a historical monstrosity of evils. Elie shinned the very light into that deep dark reality of hate, war and tyrannical insanity of Nazi Germany. I feel Night is a book that should be handed out like it's a Bible, so that persons can truly experience and never ever forget what happened. We cannot forget the Holocaust. To forget it is to allow those Nazi monsters to win. To forget it is giving them victory. Night shall always be a book that I will always recommend to anyone and to all ages.
This is a journey of survival. This is a coming of age story from the pits of hell. It's ultimately a true story of the will and the madness to survive the over powering darkness of humanity.
Would I Recommend: To everyone, that is enough said
Would I Return to it Again: This is my 2nd time reading it and it won't be my last. It is a book that should be read often to remind oneself that true evil exist and that, that evil can come to power and alter and transform history.
Four Final Words: Passionately detailed. Masterly Created.
My Rating: 5 out of 5
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Pressed tightly against one another, in an effort to resist the cold, our heads empty and heavy, our brains a whirlwind of decaying memories. Our minds numb with indifference. Here or elsewhere, what did it matter? Die today or tomorrow, or later? The night was growing longer, never-ending.
When at last a grayish light appeared on the horizon, it revealed a tangle of human shapes, heads sunk deeply between the shoulders, crouching, piled one on top of the other, like a cemetery covered with snow. In the early dawn light, I tried to distinguish between the living and those who were no more. But there was barely a difference. My gaze remained fixed on someone who, eyes wide open, stared into space. His colorless face was covered with a layer of frost and snow.
----Page 98