Night by Elie Wiesel

Serendipitously, I finished this book Tuesday, which was Holocaust Remembrance Day (even though I didn't know it at the time). It seems the most appropriate way to pay homage to those who lost their lives in the Holocaust and to those who survived as well.

Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor himself, has a reputation that is without question one of the most respected in the WWII literary world. He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, the French Legion of Honor, and the Nobel Peace Prize. Although he has published over forty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, Night was his first, written a little over ten years after he was liberated from Buchenwald. The first version was published in Yiddish in 1956, and then in English in 1960. In 2006, his wife, who probably best understands Elie's voice and personality, re-translated the version I read.

Elie was born and raised in Transylvania, and as a youth, lived as a devout Jew. When he was fifteen years old, he was herded into a ghetto, then transported with his family to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister were exterminated there, but Elie and his father were able to stay together until they were moved to Buchenwald, where his father eventually died. While this is an auto-biographical recount of his experience, it about more than the horrors we have come to expect in a book about the Holocaust. It is more about the loss of youth, the loss of faith in God, and questions what one would renounce in order to survive.

"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 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 my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

I'm sorry, but if this doesn't put a chill in your bones, nothing will.

This is a very short book - only 120 pages - but took me days to read. I had to put it down often. The prose is direct and factual, and lacks any in-depth character development. Despite this, I'm left with echoes of a young Polish boy who played his beloved violin to his death. Of hundreds of cries and moans of distress from the train cars, "a death rattle of an entire convoy with the end approaching". Of a commandant telling young Elie not to worry about his dying father, that it is "every man for himself" and there is "no such thing as a father, a brother or a friend".

Did I like this book? Yes I did. I can't ditch my Miss Merry Sunshine badge quite yet...this would not be a good place to start with a critical attitude. But neither would I be anxious to re-read it anytime soon. I know this is an overused word, but it is downright haunting. But Wiesel accomplished what he set out to do, and that is to first, bear witness. Second, to "prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory".