vacation book report - Night, Elie Wiesel
i didn't know most students in high school and college read Elie Wiesel's book Night, because i didn't. i only heard about it recently as i was skimming through the radio dial and stopped briefly at an NPR interview with him regarding the new edition of this book. i forgot about it quickly until i was stymied during a quick search in the new book section at the library and came across it. i don't regret reading it. it was so sad though. in the book he lost his faith. its not hard to understand his doubts. in the preface to the new edition he remarks, "The infants thrown into fiery ditches...I did not say that they were alive, but that was what I thought. But then I convinced myself: no, they were dead, otherwise I surely would have lost my mind. and yet fellow inmates also saw them; they were alive when they were thrown into the flames. Historians, among them Telford Taylor, confirmed it. and yet somehow I did not lose my mind." p xiii-xiv
would he have lost his faith if he were a Christian? i've been reading another book of 1st person anecdotes of Misty pilots in Vietnam and all the POWs describe how their faith did enable them to persevere and not lose hope. but i'm sure there were Christians who lost their faith in those camps. Wiesel was a Kabbalist in training, a Jewish mystic, who spent much of his childhood in prayer and study and contemplation.
Wiesel describes his first night in Aushwitz, p. 34
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.
One of the things that haunts him was the freedom they had until the end to escape before the Nazis came, p50, "Their parents, like mine, had not had the courage to sell everything and emigrate while there was still time." Even when a concentration camp escapee came to their village and warned them-what preposterous ravings, who could invent such barbarity and live with themselves. Even when the government fell to the Nazis-what happens in the cities won't affect the rural areas. And then one day the Nazis came. First came the yellow stars. Then the neighborhood relocation. Then the barbed wire ghetto. Then the cattle cars. Every step was one they would live with, because what's a star, what's a closer neighborhood, what's barbed wire, what's relocation, until finally, what are those smokestacks?
He and his camp were forced to watch a child hang from the gallows, p. 65, "...the child, too light, was still breathing...And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range...Behind me, I heard the same man asking: 'For God's sake, where is God?' And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ' Where He is? This is where-hanging here from this gallows...'"
He is so forthright with his anger toward God, p.68, "I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men, assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger."
The irony is that he betrays his beliefs. How can he be angry at someone who doesn't exist? In this edition, his Nobel prize acceptance speech is included. He says, "But I have faith. Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even in His creation. And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all." p. 120
For Wiesel, writing his story was an action. In his foreword he concludes, "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."
Unfortunately, madmen continue to rise who determine the best solution to a perceived problem is the final solution. my next book report is about another and recent final solution. why is genocide so compelling? i can't approach it without an added demonic component to it. not that i believe the "devil made me do it" is a valid legal defense, but how can one kill in cold blood? how can one kill innocent babies? is it conditioning? desensitizing over time? is this not the condition of our country?
would he have lost his faith if he were a Christian? i've been reading another book of 1st person anecdotes of Misty pilots in Vietnam and all the POWs describe how their faith did enable them to persevere and not lose hope. but i'm sure there were Christians who lost their faith in those camps. Wiesel was a Kabbalist in training, a Jewish mystic, who spent much of his childhood in prayer and study and contemplation.
Wiesel describes his first night in Aushwitz, p. 34
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.
One of the things that haunts him was the freedom they had until the end to escape before the Nazis came, p50, "Their parents, like mine, had not had the courage to sell everything and emigrate while there was still time." Even when a concentration camp escapee came to their village and warned them-what preposterous ravings, who could invent such barbarity and live with themselves. Even when the government fell to the Nazis-what happens in the cities won't affect the rural areas. And then one day the Nazis came. First came the yellow stars. Then the neighborhood relocation. Then the barbed wire ghetto. Then the cattle cars. Every step was one they would live with, because what's a star, what's a closer neighborhood, what's barbed wire, what's relocation, until finally, what are those smokestacks?
He and his camp were forced to watch a child hang from the gallows, p. 65, "...the child, too light, was still breathing...And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range...Behind me, I heard the same man asking: 'For God's sake, where is God?' And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ' Where He is? This is where-hanging here from this gallows...'"
He is so forthright with his anger toward God, p.68, "I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men, assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger."
The irony is that he betrays his beliefs. How can he be angry at someone who doesn't exist? In this edition, his Nobel prize acceptance speech is included. He says, "But I have faith. Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and even in His creation. And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all." p. 120
For Wiesel, writing his story was an action. In his foreword he concludes, "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."
Unfortunately, madmen continue to rise who determine the best solution to a perceived problem is the final solution. my next book report is about another and recent final solution. why is genocide so compelling? i can't approach it without an added demonic component to it. not that i believe the "devil made me do it" is a valid legal defense, but how can one kill in cold blood? how can one kill innocent babies? is it conditioning? desensitizing over time? is this not the condition of our country?
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