Night

Hard, but important read.

this book numbed me to my senses. in every page turned, all i could hope was that he and his father will survive and to have another piece of bread.

The narration is innocent and simple, so much that i wondered why it got the award it did. Also, the situation spiraled to such inexplicable horror so quickly that i couldn't immediately grasp the reality of it. But surely none of them could too. It was wartime, it rained bad news, no one's ready for anything. By the time i got my sense working, it's just terror after terror. The book was written much later after he was released but perhaps the narration is simple because that was how the author experienced the whole thing as a 14 years old, and gdi if that ain't hurt even more now. I thought my heart hardened because i sacrifice animals a lot for occupational duty, but the book's still so emotionally difficult to read i need to put it down every so often. Tbh, what can i say? As a 21st century 26 years old living an extremely different life, i feel like i'm unqualified to say anything about something so colossal without reducing it to something else, to something less. I just decided that i won't steer away from war theme like i've always been from now on. The war threatens the small hope i have for human's supposedly virtuous nature, it's frightening, it raises dissonance. But what happened happened and we need to learn about it. We need to see the worst we can be to put boundaries and control ourselves accordingly. Screw my views on human nature, gotta see the facts, and retune it at all times anw.

Such a heartbreaking, stark look into the Holocaust and the will to survive. One of the first books I remember reading about trauma and injustice in the world. I don't know if they teach the Holocaust in school anymore - but this is a formative story that helped shape my empathy. My understanding that the world is bigger than myself. My humanity. Read it if you haven't. And make your kids read it, too.

A gripping narrative of the author’s experience in the Holocaust. Relatively short but packs an emotional punch - Wiesel’s prose is devastatingly beautiful and paints a picture of the absolute devastation the worst of humanity can wreak.

GREAT book. The actual events of the story hit you hard, but the WRITING was what really brought it through. Elie had to re account (safe to say) the most painful experience of his life, and he did it wonderfully. It is an novel of pain, dying faith, loyalty, family, and brutality, yet it is written so beautifully that you hardly realize you are reading about one of the worst things to occur in human history. I read this book about a month ago, so I don't remember everything I wanted to say on it, but it was an amazing read (also quarter 4 novel english 9), I'm glad I read it, and I think I will be reading it again.

2017: This is my fourth reading Night, and it won't be my last. A work of great importance, it must be read repeatedly to remind ourselves of grave mistakes of our past, to honour the victims, and to prevent such atrocities from happening ever again.

5/5stars In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous. No words can ever do justice to this book, to come even close to explaining what reading this years and years after the publication did to me, so I cannot even begin to comprehend what it was like back then, what it was like for those who experienced it first hand. “Only those who experienced Auschwitz know what it was.” indeed. Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because he kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar? I have not read many books surrounding the holocaust but let's just say the way this small merely 100 page book made me feel so many things, I CRIED MY EYES OUT. It's gut-wrenching it's heart-breaking but it is the truth and people need to stop trying to erase this out of the history. To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. People need to stop being silent. As Elie Wiesel himself mentioned in his Nobel Price Acceptance Speech, "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. Obvious CWs for the book: Holocaust, Concentration Camps(vv graphic) please look into those before going into this one!

Definitely read if you're interested in learning more about the holocaust.

So very sad. All the more so because it's true.

A very dark and grim book, which follows the suffering of 15 years old boy being held in Nazi Germany concentration camps. The cruelty and excessive abuse which the jews had to suffer is presented in very realistic and gloomy fashion, the author will make you try to gasp for air just like the protagonist. Its dark and hunting and will make you feel sympathetic.

How do you even rate a book like this? This is a very important book. Don't know why it took so long for me to read.

It’s been a long time since I last read Night. Originally part of my 11th grade curriculum, where we covered WWI and WWII literature, I seem to remember this directly followed us reading All Quiet on the Western Front. This book’s contents are a powerful reminder of what happened in the past, why hatred must never be allowed to govern, else we turn into monstrosities capable of doing the horrible thing listed in the accounts of survivors like Elie Wiesel. This book was deserving of it’s Nobel prize. It’s simply written, so much so that it becomes more accessible to younger generations as they grow - as mine was. Most people my age have never and will never meet a survivor of the Holocaust. This is how we must learn the crimes committed against these people, this darkness of human nature. Accounts like these are how we must learn not to become the people who commit these unforgivable atrocities. Rereading this as an adult, I now see how simple the writing is. While it makes it more approachable as a young adult, I feel now that the author could have pushed that line a little more, make the reader feel more what he did while there. The writing style left me feeling detatched from the events, as an observer, and I wish that it would have made me feel more uncomfortable. Wiesel’s account is powerful and horrifying, and I think it could have pushed the reader’s comfort level even more than it did. I would recommend this book to others. While not challenging in terms of the ability to read, obviously the content is more challenging emotionally. Like most accounts of the Holocaust, this is not a book for the faint of heart.

haunting

can't believe I'm only two generations away from experiencing this. absolutely haunting.

This is a biography of Elie Wiesel and his experience during the Holocaust. From being segregated from his community, being transported to several death camps, losing his loved ones, and to finally being freed. This is a necessary read for anyone to know how easy lives can be extinguished due to the heartlessness of others. That "human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere." I was in a bookstore in Seattle, and my fiance highly recommended this book because he read it in high school. That was two years ago. I picked this up because it looked like a short read to pass the time, but never did I think I would be crying so quickly. When learning about the Holocaust in school, teachers glaze over the suffering that people went through, only showing the shoes they left behind. If you haven't read this, you need to. It won a Nobel Peace Prize for a reason.

This book was breathtaking. It tugged at my heart strings and no person should ever have to live through that.

I can’t review this book. I last read Night in 2012, and it remains just as brutal and devastating as I remembered. I reread it in observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, designated January 27th. This is a first-hand account of life in a Nazi concentration camp through the eyes of a Jew. Wiesel’s bitterness and brutal honesty about his experience, even regarding his own decisions and regrets while suffering things that I cannot even fathom, is powerful beyond words. The version I read was translated from French into English by his wife, Marion Wiesel, which I felt added something that I can’t even put into words. While he underwent unspeakably heinous treatment at the tender age of fifteen, the fact that he lived to pen this memoir, and to marry his wife, brings a little bit of hope to the bleakness. But Wiesel was the exception to the rule; far more people died in these concentration camps than ever escaped, which is well conveyed in this book. May we never forget.

such a devastating story, it made my heart hurt while i was reading it and when i finished

Just to preface I am a person who likes to read, learn, and research different things about the Holocaust. I am a person who doesn’t read the forward or any other author notes before the first chapter, but with this book it gave me such good information that was useful in reading this book. Now time for summary of my thoughts - Overall, I genuinely enjoyed this read. From the beginning it talked about life was before getting everything taken and how slowly some things happened but other happened faster. Toward the middle of the book, came the more heavy details about the torture endured during concentrations camps, and the journeys they had to go on to go from camp to camp. Finally the end of the book got sad, I don’t want to give any spoilers so I won’t say what happens, but I’d have a tissue box on hand. Truly I am happy that I read this novel, which gave me a perspective on what men went through in camps. This book is definitely not for young kids, and some teenagers who cannot handle reading deep texts. I am also reading the audacity right which is another holocaust book and will be writing a review every soon!

Heartbreaking account of the horrors of the holocaust- a story such as this one can only be written by a survivor of these tragedies, a story with this amount of pain behind the words can never be replicated by someone who wasn't there. It's an important story for everyone to read, to show what humans and hate are truly capable of.

No matter what your politics, religion, world views, or whatever. I think we can all sympathize with what happened in 1944. Just reading the book left me lingering with images of the situations. I can't imagine how a survivor would deal with those events drilled into their minds

This was a really good book. I read it for my summer reading class right before my senior year and I enjoyed seeing the perspective of someone who was actually there as opposed to history books. Obviously, the things that happened were awful and I hope something like them never happen again, but when told the way that it is in this book, I think we should all get the chance to read it.

Great quick read. Authors memoir about his experience in the Holocaust