Book Review: Night

September 13, 2007

"Night had fallen. That evening, we went to bed early. My father said: 'Sleep peacefully, children. Nothing will happen until the day after tomorrow, Tuesday' ....It was to be the last night spent in our house. ...At nine o'clock...policemen wielding clubs were shouting: 'All Jews outside!'...
That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. The were the first faces of hell and death."

Author Elie Wiesel was 15 when he and his family were taken from their home in Transylvania to Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald. This book is the haunting account of the horror of his life in the camps and struggle for survival as he and his father and millions of Jewish people had their humanity stripped away in a single night. Woven throughout the memoir are Wiesel's battle with the guilt of survival, the unbelievable reality of the attempted annihilation of an entire race of people, and his despair at losing his faith. This is a tremendously powerful book and one that I would absolutely recommend to everyone--so that we never become complacent.