Night is one of those books you hear about often, almost always in the context of "it's a devastating read". Even yesterday, I told a friend I was reading it, and she seemed shocked I was reading it just to read it, instead of as an assignment from someone. Night is such a heavy read that it might seem daunting, but it is one of those books I feel everyone should read at least once. It is the nonfictional and autobiographical retelling of Elie Wiesel's life as a 15 year-old Hungarian Jew in 1944, when he and his entire family were sent to the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. In the preface, Wiesel writes:
"What I do know is that there is 'response' in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness, so close and yet so distant, 'responsibility' is the key word. The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future."
That is what the book is about, and that is why the story is so heartbreaking: Wiesel is laying out the devastation he saw to ensure that future generations will be reminded of what humans are capable of, so that never again will it happen.
There are so many other parts of the books that can be talked about, but one I find most interesting is the idea that we, as humans, wait until it is too late to change our ways. The Jews of Sighet (the Romanian town where Wiesel and his family are from) are warned that danger is coming, and yet, until the very last moment, they seem to live in a delusional world where everything will turn out fine. It is like the story of the frog in a pot placed over a slow heating stove: the frog will not try to escape the water, because the temperature is raised so slowly that it thinks everything is fine, until the water boils and it is too late, because the frog has already burnt. Night thus serves as a warning to the future, for us to remember of what happens and what can happen again, unless we make sure it never does.
In only 120 pages, Elie Wiesel has written a book that serves to warn all of humankind. Needless to say, this is a 5/5 read, and one I recommend to all and will likely read again soon.
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