Customer Rating: 
Summary: Night, By: Elie Wiesel
Comment: Night is truly an extraordinary book. The author is an amazing writer because you feel as if you
were right beside him in the boxcars and when he was in the concentration camp. I am the same age
that Elie was during the time of the book. I can't imagine how hard it must have been to experience
the barbarous treatment that he endured. The part that I can not imagine is being a witness to the
murders of children.
In the spring of 1944, the Wiesel family along with other Jewish
families were deported to a ghetto. Not wanting to accept the grim reality of their future, many
people thought this was only a temporary situation. However, the animosity of the soldiers soon
showed them that deportation was not a farce. The Wiesel family arrived like cattle in train cars to
their first concentration camp, Auschwitz. There they separated the men from the women. Elie and
his father stayed together. That was the last time Elie saw his little sister and his mother
alive.
Elie and his father`s year in the concentration camps was a horrific time. The toll
of starvation, beatings and death was unimaginable. Though they had strong faith, they began to
doubt that there was a God anymore; even the rabbi was beginning to believe that God was no longer
with them. I believe that if I were in that position, even with my strong faith, I would have also
doubted my faith in God just as Elie did.
One quote that stuck in my mind was, "Here there
are no fathers, no brothers, no friends." These people were brought down to such a low point that
the only way to survive was to fend for themselves. That was their only hope for survival. Even
Elie was to the point that he was beginning to think that it would be easier if his sick father
would just die so all his energy would be used on himself. What a horrible situation to be put in
where you were thinking about letting your own father die so you can go on.
The death of
his father left Elie's life in a blur until the liberation of the camp. It was a sad ending because
his father died a few days before the camp was liberated. Elie would not talk about his experiences
for 10 years after the horror.
I can't say I enjoyed the book, because of the horrible
events that happen. It made me aware of the historical events that we all have heard about, but did
not know the details until now.
Customer Rating: Summary: A Review of Night by Elie Wiesel
Comment: Night by Elie Wiesel is a 120-page, first-hand account of a boy who lived through Auschwitz and
Buchenwald concentration camps during the Holocaust. Wiesel published his story in Yiddish in 1958
and in English in 1960. The genre is World War II and/or a Holocaust autobiography and the reading
level is 8.7.
Night begins in 1941, when Elie is twelve years old. He is a studious
and devout boy from Sighet, Transylvania. Despite that they were warned of the approaching German
Army, the townspeople of Sighet--including Elie's family--denied that they were in reach of the
Germans and years of naivety passed by.
By 1944, the Germans established ghettos for
the Jews in Sighet and soon after began to deport the Jews to the concentration camp in Auschwitz.
In his story, Wiesel depicts how the Germans forced the Jews into cattle wagons like animals.
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When the train arrives at Birkenau, Elie and his mother and sisters are separated. To stay
together, Elie and his father lie about their age. They are shaved, showered, given work clothes,
and branded with numbers. Quickly thereafter, Elie and his father are moved to Buna, a new camp at
which they both are beaten severely by the management.
As a result of their
experiences, the overworked and malnourished prisoners lose their faith in God. Even Elie, who was
once deeply religious, after witnessing the hanging of a young boy, questions God's existence.
Fortunately, Elie and his father manage to survive through the German's selection process and avoid
the crematorium, a destination for prisoners unfit to work.
When the Germans decide to
move the prisoners away from the advancing Russian army, they begin a march during winter that
claims many lives but Elie and his father manage to survive. By the end of the winter march to
Buchenwald, only a dozen prisoners survive of the original one hundred, including Elie and his
father.
Following the trip, Elie witnesses his father's failing health and eventual
death. At Buchenweld, the Germans try to exterminate all the Jews but before they can carry out
their plan there is an uprising in the camp by the resistance. On April 11, 1945, American tanks
liberate Elie and the others--mere corpses of what they once were before their experiences in the
concentration camps.
Night is a candid portrayal of the horrors of the Holocaust, short
but poignant. The narrator allows the reader to see his darkest thoughts and to understand the range
of emotions he felt from losing his faith to losing his family. Elie even admits his feelings of
resentment toward his father when his father's health began to fail. The drive for survival provoked
many to behave without compassion and Elie recognized the similarity in his own feelings toward the
end of his stay at the camps. Night is a must-read story for all students/adults/parents/etc. to
understand the depths of the brutality of the Holocaust and how it robbed the narrator of his family
and faith. One negative aspect of Wiesel's book is the abrupt ending that leaves the reader longing
for a greater sense of closure. Wiesel later found out that his elder sisters also survived the
concentration camps. However, he makes not mention of this in his book.
Customer Rating: Summary: Nothing short of amazing...
Comment: I have been to Germany, toured Dachau and have been interested in reading about the holocaust ever
since. Reading "Night", was nothing short of amazing. There wasn't one page where I lost interest
and by the end, I felt conflicted. I was happy that such a sad story was over, but sad that such an
amazing book was done. Elie Wiesel is hero, a survivor, an excellent son and a gifted author. It's
so sad that all this greatness came at such a personal cost. Would I ever love to sit and talk with
this man... amazing from cover to cover.
