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Night

by Elie Wiesel

Night by Elie Wiesel X
Night by Elie Wiesel
  • Critics' Opinion:

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  • First Published:
    Jan 2006, 144 pages

    Paperback:
    Jan 2006, 144 pages

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There are currently 26 reader reviews for Night
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na2 (03/04/09)

good book
This book is really awesome!!!
Elie taught me about life through this book........
Libby Carr (01/20/09)

Night by Elie Wiesel
I thought that Night by Elie Wiesel was a great book. It was short and sweet (well maybe not too sweet) since it is about the Holocaust. Once I started reading it I could not put it down. It kept me on my toes because I did not know what was going to happen next, partly because the families in the memoir also did not know themselves. I had some background on the Holocaust, but not a lot. Even with the little that I do know I was able to follow what Elie was explaining and also learn some new things along the way.



Elie is very straight forward in his style of telling the events that are taking place. He is not going to try to censor it or cover it up because it is a story that the world needs to hear.Night begins with some Jews from Sighet, Transylvania being deported, one being Moishe the Beadle, Elies teacher. Moishe the Beadle was one of the lucky ones who had escaped and returned back to Sighet, but who had also been changed forever. He tried to warn the townspeople of Hitler and the horrors what are taking place. No one believed his stories and they just thought that he had lost his mind. But then it happens, slowly the Gestapo come in and take over the town and then eventually deport the Jews of Sighet. When they finally get to their first destination the words, Men to the left! Women to the right! were shouted by the SS officers. This is the last moment that Elie will ever see his mother and sister. He is forced to become a man at the age of 15.



Night is a memoir about the relationship between a father and son. Their relationship centers on each other. As the days go by their relationship builds and becomes stronger. I could relate to this relationship with my own family. I sort of put myself in his shoes and tried to relate to it. The main theme of the memoir is survival. While most of the prisoners only looked out for themselves, Elie and his father were always looking out for each other. They did whatever it took for them both to survive and with out each other they probably would have given up. Not only did the Nazis take away Elies family and faith, but they also took away his childhood. I could keep telling all about this book, but I want you to read it and feel how it draws you in.
Elizabeth Vanwig (11/29/08)

GREAT
Elie's never dying spirit and courage tugs at your heart and lets you know in your life you can get though anything.
Geoff (02/02/08)

GREAT BOOK
I first read night in 8th grade. I have recently reread the book and rediscovered what a true masterpiece it is. Night is one of the most chilling books I have ever read. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a great book to read. It is one of the BEST books I have read.
Clay Edmondson (01/10/08)

Night
Elie Wiesel is a survivor of the Holocaust, and he retold his experiences in the book Night. This is a story of how the small Jewish country of Sighet, was deported and the Jews were forced to work at labor camps.

The way that Wiesel tells the story of his life made me understand more of what went on during the Holocaust. This book made me think about what it would be like if I had lived during these times and had to try and survive the labor camps.

During his ordeal in the camps and the selections, he made many friends, such as the French girl that he meets at the warehouse. He also meets a young boy by the name of Juliek who plays the violin, but later dies on night in his sleep.

For most of the story Night a father and son use each other to survive. They help each other stay awake , because they say "falling asleep in this cold would kill a man." If these two paople would have been separated right away, they may not have survived as long as they did, because they pushed themselves to survive and stick together.

One of the main themes of the story is the fact that Elie tries to maintain his faith in God, even though all these bad things are going on around them, and happening to them, like Elie and his father being seperated from his mother and sisters.

I think that in the story, Elie was a type of hero for his father. Without Elie his father would have died a lot sooner than he did. At the same time Elie's father was also a hero to his son, because Elie said that once he thought about trowing hiself into a pit of dead bodies. His father told him not to. Another hero in this book is the American Army. The reason that I thought that the American Army was a hero is because they save all those people and they stopped the Nazis from killing more people than they already had killed.

Overall I liked this book and it was a good choice. I would recommend reading this book to anyone that is interested in the Holocaust and the events that occured during this period. If you want to find out what happens to Elie and his family more in depth you need to read the book!!!
Tyler Young (01/10/08)

Night by Elie Wiesel
I did not live during the Holocaust or even have a sense of what went on during the period Night by Elie Wiesel was written. This story is about the survival of Elie himself and his father. Imagine a world completely different from today, not knowing what tomorrow will bring or when you will get a nibble of bread and a little bit of soup.

As I read, I felt the author was playing with my emotions. I did not have to put the book down or close my eyes to picture the events; they kept playing out in my mind like I was watching a movie. For a few pages you may be angry or feel the pain of living in a concentration camp, maybe this is the reason why the book won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

The struggle of not one person, but two plays out in this story. Elie and his father keep from being split up. All they have is each other, no possessions, not even a pair of shoes. Imagine how your life would be without the possessions you call necessities.

This story of Night also shows how stress can change people’s minds: to go from caring to not caring and not even realize it. Wiesel mentioned a time where he could not find his father. “Don’t let me find him! If I could only get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all of my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself.” Suddenly the thing most important to you goes to the back of your mind, even if it was your own father, as in Wiesel’s case. Wiesel also started to doubt God. As the book went on he did not believe in God because of what was happening to everyone around him.

Wiesel kept me reading and imagining what I would have done in his situation especially having your life in the hands of other people, I kept wondering what I would do. You eat when they say, you work when they say, and you sleep when they say. To see things you never thought a person could do to another will be enough to keep you wondering how this book ends.

The thought of seeing everyone around you a breath away from death gave me a chill. Wiesel mentioned not seeing himself in the mirror for quite sometime. When he was finally able to see himself he saw an image he will never forget. “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.” I could keep telling you more, but I want you to read the book and feel the emotions the story gave me.
Sarah (01/10/08)

Night by Elie Wiesel is filled with sadness and hopelessness. In the story Eliezer explains the emotion and fear of his experience in great detail, “Never shall I forget that night.” Night is a biography based on a first hand experience in the Holocaust. Wiesel’s writing style is very descriptive and plays on the reader’s emotions. It is very thought provoking and is full of despair and an internal loss of hope. “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.” I loved this book because it gives you a true picture of what the Holocaust was really like. It shows you what happened through Eliezer’s eyes. He makes you realize what can happen to you if you were to experience a life-changing event.

I think that it was truly amazing and terrible how great masses of people would actually get involved together and harm other certain individuals. Elie Wiesel was a spokesperson for humanity and spoke out for all of the survivors of the Holocaust. He wrote forty other international works of fiction and non-fiction. He also was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the American Congressional Gold Metal. He is currently a professor at Boston University. I think that this book was amazing and should defiantly be read by anyone interested in learning more about the Holocaust.

[This review has been edited both for length and to remove plot spoilers]
Mr. Cool Guy (01/10/08)

I give it 5 thumbs up, plus my own personal Hoorah!
Almost everyone has learned about the Holocaust in a history class at some point in time, but nothing compares to what we learn in Elie Wiesel’s novel Night. Night is Wiesel’s memoir of his account in both Auschwitz and Buna, which are two Nazi concentration camps. Night deals a lot with religion, death, appreciation for life, and memory.

Eliezer, who is 12 years old in the beginning of the book, grew up in a very religious small town: Sighet, Transylvania. He was a typical young boy, other than the fact that he was obsessed with learning about the cabbala. He had a normal life and a normal family, and he lived in a normal town. I liked that because I could easily relate to the young boy; he reminded me of myself when I was his age, other than studying the cabbala.

Religion plays a very big role in Night, because it seems like every Jewish person of this Jewish town is religious. They all believe in God, but after they are taken to the concentration camp, many of them start to question their religion, including Eliezer. When a young man is hanged on the gallows, one man asks “Where is your God now?” and Eliezer responds, “Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows….”

Some fall to hysteria because they know their chance of survival is very slim, but some, like Eliezer, stay strong and united to others, especially his father. Both Eliezer and his father lied about their ages so that they could stick together.

Wiesel’s tone is a very serious one, appropriately, to tell his horrifying story of survival, death, life, compassion and human instincts. The compassion comes into play when Eliezer’s father becomes ill, and everyone advises young Eleizer (Who is about 15 by this point) to just leave him and fend for himself, but Eleizer takes care of his father. Young Eleizer had to deal with so much that it’s almost impossible to imagine actually living through that.

There are no surprises or plot twists in this story, and you already know that he lives through it, because he wrote the book, but does his family live through it? If you want to learn more about the Holocaust, then this is the book for you. Regardless of what genre they normally read, most people can appreciate this book for its structure, and overall story. They may even come to like it much like I did, and by the end, you’ll feel as though you personally know Eliezer, and like you’ve actually lived through the Holocaust. I feel that one reason Wiesel wrote Night was so he could remind everybody that this actually happened and to help prevent it from happening again. What’s the point of reading this book if you can’t learn from it?

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