I was happy to see that this book was added to Oprah's book club, this ment that millions who never knew of this book would read it or at least hear it's story. I read this in college as part of the debates on wither the US should have entered WW2 before 1941. When I was done I felt that I had been robbed. Not that I didn't enjoy the book but that noone had told me about it before. I would rather have read this in Middle or High school then some of the junk books they forced on us, and while Romeo and Joilet is a fine work I belive that the story Wiesel gives us is more timly and would give kids something to think about.
The story of Wiesel and his Father in the camps should make anyone who reads this book take note of what happens when Fascism and National Socalism are given a foothold.Sadly we are having to learn some of this lessons again, hopefully we learned then well enough to stop another Holocaust.

Should be required reading for . . . for everyone who can read. Puts a face, a voice, a mind, a spirit to something that is so hard to comprehend that it often can feel more like an idea than a reality. A truly moving book. Also, I would recommend the PBS documentary made about Wiesel that was produced, written and edited by David Grossbach and Rob Gardner.

This book is absolutely not anti-religion, and it does not promote any one religion, so readers need not be worried that this book is promoting religion or atheism. I RECOMMEND IT.

Wow, it has ben a long time since I read a book so touching. Thank you!

Some of the scenes went on and on and on, but overall it was very heart touching, eye opening look at the truth of the situation.

Very well written. Gets to the point. This is the FIRST book I've read (other than Diary of Anne Frank) about the concentration camps & the horrific plight of those who endured them. I CAN say - Weisel does an excellent job of conveying what happened during the years being confined and moved among camps. And fortunately for us - he paints a good enough picture of the experience without having to go in to more details that he easily could have. It makes you want to go back in time & CHANGE what happened. It makes me NOT want to read anymore on this subject b/c of the unspeakable horrors that existed & no one did anything about.

If you haven't read this book then you must read it. I have nothing else to say about it than that. The feelings and emotions this book stirred within me are too great to put into words. At the end of the book there is a speech given by Elie Wiesel and there were two phrases that jumped out at me and that's what I will finish with.

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.

I've never read such a short book with such a huge impact. When I read this as part of a college class, we learned that it was originally some 600 pages long. Then the author decided to cut it down to the absolute bare bones - and it worked brilliantly.

Too much writing could cushion the devastation - getting bogged down in details could allow a reader to become jaded. However, such stark minimalism forces a reader to think about what is being said. And significantly, Wiesel doesn't describe every horror. He leads us to the brink, and lets the reader imagine the next step. Rather like watching a horror movie and seeing a character walk into the dark without seeing what happens to them. Just as many Jewish families had to do during this time, when loved ones were taken away never to return. The intentionally large gaps between some of the paragraphs faithfully evoke the silence the author needs to convey so a reader must contemplate what has passed.

Much like "The Color Purple" evoked the reality of blacks in that time with the deceptively simple diary of one young black woman, "Night" reveals the tangible horror the Jews faced around WWII from the eyes of a Jewish boy. I have seen the film version of The Color Purple, and also Schindler's List. Both are strong films, but they lack the power of this simple narrative. The best book I have ever read about the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Man's inhumanity to man from one who survived it.

As Mr. Wiesel notes in the introduction of his book, words can not--do not--describe what it was like--must have been like--to endure man's inhumanity to man. We in this day and time can't imagine, can't begin to fathom, what Mr. Wiesel's words try to describe.

The Holocaust, combined with the Russian Army's treatment of German women and with Japanese treatment of the Chinese surely must mark one of the darkest, most despicable times of man upon the earth.

Where, in deed, was God?

Yet, because we are still here--the Director did not come on stage and stop the play to use C.S. Lewis' imagery--there is still hope. God has not yet given up on man, but sometimes we wonder--at times like Mr. Wiesel describes--why He hasn't. He must see something, some possibility in man that we don't always see ourselves--and sometimes try very hard to hide and overcome.

Mr. Wiesel's Nobel Prize acceptance, coming as it does, at the end of the book, is one of the most powerful statements ever made about man's responsibility--about our individual responsibility--to stand up for those who need our help and support.

Abraham Lincoln may have said it best in his Gettysburg Address, "...That these dead have not died in vain...."

Mr. Wiesel's work speaks powerfully toward that end.

This novel to me portrays the absolute depravity and madness that humanity can fall into. The beginning superbly portrays the false hope that many people had that this situation would just blow over until it was too late despite the warnings from many people that it was just beginning. The language is so heart-rending and drips with rhetoric and deep meaning that sears the soul. The authors portrayal of his loss of faith and soul is so beautiful and yet so devastating in it's simple clarity that I felt I was there with him losing my mind. The deaths of those around him and the way he explains it makes me feel like their deaths weren't in vain and are left unsullied by his beautiful words. There is only one thing I would wish for this novel and that would be for it to be longer...I was left wanting to hear more about what happened.

I liked this book but its sad. I got this book because I like history and wanted to know more about what happened in WWII.

A must read so we will not forget that the civilized world swore we would not allow this to happen again. To our shame our country turned a blind eye to Rwanda and Darfur because we have forgotten.

This book is a quick read, but has a long lasting impact.

Night is the accounts of one man's one year survivial of one of our worlds worst atrocities. Clearly, while reading this book I too would question with every turn of the pages, "where was god?". If anything would test one's faith, I couldn't imagine anything more befitting. There are countless survivors of millions of different struggles. Mine has been a congenital heart disease. Many of us have a story to tell. But the underlining message here is how one man hung on to something special and dear in his heart, something more powerful that all the cruelty that was delt him could not penetrate and taint his sheild; ..."where god was". Many, obviously, did not survive the holocaust. Not because they didn't believe that god is love. And not because they didn't believe in themselves. But because a design beyond our control has a plan. Elie Wiesel knew god was with him the entire time, as with us all, always. And we are fortunate to read his story and listen to his painful lectures. Lest we forget our history, god delivered Elie Wiesel's survival to us. This is a highly recommended read for anyone. I, for one, am grateful to this man for sharing his life with me.

I've been meaning to read "Night" for a while. I see it every time I pop into a bookstore. Plus it's only 115 pages and can be read over a few hours. I suspect it's taken me this long to read it because I knew it would be disturbing. How could a story of surviving Auschwitz be anything but disturbing?

I finally got around to reading it today and it is well worth the uncomfortable feelings it elicits. Wiesel writes in a spare, journalistic style. He depicts his harrowing journey with surprising swiftness -- he and his family were transported from a Transylvanian ghetto to Poland during 1944. Stories were already circulating about the Russian front making strides to liberate them; many of Wiesel's comrades were hopeful they would be spared. All hope died when they arrive by cattle car to the camps. The scenes depicted here -- of starvation, cruelty, senseless death -- are not easy to read. Most wrenching is Wiesel's relationship with his father. By saving the very personal to the end, Wiesel holds off on fully engrossing the reader until the bitter end. This is a powerful style choice -- just as you're finishing the volume, you're overcome by the pure evil of what has transpired.

I read the other reviews for this book and went right out to my library to check it out. It is a thin book so it's easy to read it in a day or less.
I have great respect and admiration for the Jewish people and survivors of the Halocaust. It is an event that will forver stay in history and no one will ever forget. Jews were truly wronged.
I love reading memoirs and this book intrigued me by it's descriptions of "horrific", etc. It still can be hard to believe that this happened to the Jewish people. However, I did not get the "horrific" details from this book that I thought it promised.
I believe this man was in a horrible place and exposed to terrible conditions but I just didn't feel the pain as I read the book. I think it could have been much more descriptive with details.

Well, this is a very important book, although it makes for such painful reading. At the age of 15, Wiesel and his parents and his little sister were rounded up by the Nazis and sent to a series of concentration camps. When an SS guard barked, "Men to the left! Women to the right!" he lost his mother and sister forever. He subsequently clung to his father, although he was ashamed of dishonoring him by not standing up to the Germans who beat and humiliated him. In this excellent translation by his wife Marion, Wiesel offers up a horrific and extremely personal account of the Holocaust. He relates his own pain at being a deeply observant Jew who comes to feel abandoned by his God, unable to comprehend the absolute evil that mankind has wrought, with no divine intervention to answer even the most desperate of prayers. Eventually, his father gives up all hope because of his extreme suffering and dies, just before the Allies liberate Buchenwald. A shattered Wiesel, who would remain tormented by his memories for the rest of his life, finally becomes a free man and goes forward to tell his eyewitness tale so that this shameful era of history will not be forgotten. Many years later, in 1986, he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in honor of the Jewish people.

Night is truly an extraordinary book. The author is an amazing writer because you feel as if you were right beside him in the boxcars and when he was in the concentration camp. I am the same age that Elie was during the time of the book. I can't imagine how hard it must have been to experience the barbarous treatment that he endured. The part that I can not imagine is being a witness to the murders of children.
In the spring of 1944, the Wiesel family along with other Jewish families were deported to a ghetto. Not wanting to accept the grim reality of their future, many people thought this was only a temporary situation. However, the animosity of the soldiers soon showed them that deportation was not a farce. The Wiesel family arrived like cattle in train cars to their first concentration camp, Auschwitz. There they separated the men from the women. Elie and his father stayed together. That was the last time Elie saw his little sister and his mother alive.
Elie and his father`s year in the concentration camps was a horrific time. The toll of starvation, beatings and death was unimaginable. Though they had strong faith, they began to doubt that there was a God anymore; even the rabbi was beginning to believe that God was no longer with them. I believe that if I were in that position, even with my strong faith, I would have also doubted my faith in God just as Elie did.
One quote that stuck in my mind was, "Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends." These people were brought down to such a low point that the only way to survive was to fend for themselves. That was their only hope for survival. Even Elie was to the point that he was beginning to think that it would be easier if his sick father would just die so all his energy would be used on himself. What a horrible situation to be put in where you were thinking about letting your own father die so you can go on.
The death of his father left Elie's life in a blur until the liberation of the camp. It was a sad ending because his father died a few days before the camp was liberated. Elie would not talk about his experiences for 10 years after the horror.
I can't say I enjoyed the book, because of the horrible events that happen. It made me aware of the historical events that we all have heard about, but did not know the details until now.

Night by Elie Wiesel is a 120-page, first-hand account of a boy who lived through Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps during the Holocaust. Wiesel published his story in Yiddish in 1958 and in English in 1960. The genre is World War II and/or a Holocaust autobiography and the reading level is 8.7.

Night begins in 1941, when Elie is twelve years old. He is a studious and devout boy from Sighet, Transylvania. Despite that they were warned of the approaching German Army, the townspeople of Sighet--including Elie's family--denied that they were in reach of the Germans and years of naivety passed by.

By 1944, the Germans established ghettos for the Jews in Sighet and soon after began to deport the Jews to the concentration camp in Auschwitz. In his story, Wiesel depicts how the Germans forced the Jews into cattle wagons like animals.

When the train arrives at Birkenau, Elie and his mother and sisters are separated. To stay together, Elie and his father lie about their age. They are shaved, showered, given work clothes, and branded with numbers. Quickly thereafter, Elie and his father are moved to Buna, a new camp at which they both are beaten severely by the management.

As a result of their experiences, the overworked and malnourished prisoners lose their faith in God. Even Elie, who was once deeply religious, after witnessing the hanging of a young boy, questions God's existence. Fortunately, Elie and his father manage to survive through the German's selection process and avoid the crematorium, a destination for prisoners unfit to work.

When the Germans decide to move the prisoners away from the advancing Russian army, they begin a march during winter that claims many lives but Elie and his father manage to survive. By the end of the winter march to Buchenwald, only a dozen prisoners survive of the original one hundred, including Elie and his father.

Following the trip, Elie witnesses his father's failing health and eventual death. At Buchenweld, the Germans try to exterminate all the Jews but before they can carry out their plan there is an uprising in the camp by the resistance. On April 11, 1945, American tanks liberate Elie and the others--mere corpses of what they once were before their experiences in the concentration camps.

Night is a candid portrayal of the horrors of the Holocaust, short but poignant. The narrator allows the reader to see his darkest thoughts and to understand the range of emotions he felt from losing his faith to losing his family. Elie even admits his feelings of resentment toward his father when his father's health began to fail. The drive for survival provoked many to behave without compassion and Elie recognized the similarity in his own feelings toward the end of his stay at the camps. Night is a must-read story for all students/adults/parents/etc. to understand the depths of the brutality of the Holocaust and how it robbed the narrator of his family and faith. One negative aspect of Wiesel's book is the abrupt ending that leaves the reader longing for a greater sense of closure. Wiesel later found out that his elder sisters also survived the concentration camps. However, he makes not mention of this in his book.

I loved this book! It made me feel so grateful for the freedoms we enjoy. But, it is sad to think that mankind can be capable of such horrors.

Elie Wiesel's story will stay with you forever. Stark, powerful and written in simple prose, it will haunt you. How does one go on after surviving the Holocaust? 'Night' should be read in schools the world over.

I have been to Germany, toured Dachau and have been interested in reading about the holocaust ever since. Reading "Night", was nothing short of amazing. There wasn't one page where I lost interest and by the end, I felt conflicted. I was happy that such a sad story was over, but sad that such an amazing book was done. Elie Wiesel is hero, a survivor, an excellent son and a gifted author. It's so sad that all this greatness came at such a personal cost. Would I ever love to sit and talk with this man... amazing from cover to cover.

There are no words worthy to describe this epic and true tale of the Holocaust.

Buy the book, but prepare yourself for this tragedy that is our world history.

Never again.

Wolfe

Regardless of how many times I return to this book, it never fails to shock and inspire. An indispensable recollection of the horror of the Holocaust and one survivors struggle to reconcile his experience and his faith.

This book is definitely one of my favorites. I was really sick with a stomach flu one time and I read the entire trilogy start to finish. I have never done that with any other book.

The imagary is amazing. Wiesel has a way of creating an environment of such hostile conditions that you feel it in your soul. Any other person would want to repress such horrid memories, but Elie brings them to the forefront of his mind, and I was left with such a feeling of gratitude when finishing this book it was overwhelming.

Night, this book went through my soul.
Elie Wiesel described the pain, that many others and I have, in words that would be impossible for me to do.

It is no use trying to describe the story, as it is darkest than its title (the Night). I suggest for everyone to read and discover it for yourself... I think it is only good that it is a rather short story. It is too heartbreaking to make it any longer. I respect Oprah to find the most meaningful stories for her Book Club. Another great title from Oprah's Book Club that I recently read is Middlesex: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)

One of the most moving and powerful books I've read. Elie Wiesel is a master in literature and shared his Holocaust experience with authenticity, pain and honesty. A must read...

I first read "Night" in college and, even then, was struck by its power. No one who reads it can ever forget the child hanging or the despair of the camps. Now, having read it again, I am struck by how timeless the book is. Elie Wiesel's book has profound emotional honesty. Because he emerged from Hell to tell it, the book also is a guide for all of us about going through suffering in life without hating or losing or humanity.

At one point, this book was hundreds of pages long, but Elie Wiesel has wisely let silence speak as loudly as words in this memoir. It is a modern day Book of Job by a brilliant humanitarian.

Lawrence J. Epstein, author of "At the Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York's Lower East Side."

This book is absolutely amazing. I learned so much about the Holocaust because of this book. It's a true story, very sad & tragic, yet Elie Wiesel was lucky enough to survive to tell his story. This translation was really easy to read & it brought a new light on the Holocaust for me. I would definitely recommend to anyone.

I read this book back in high school and it stayed with me ever since.

I have long been obssessed with WWII and its tragedies - not out of morbid fascination, but out of worried anticipation of history repeating itself. Comments about the holocaust never occuring send chills down my spine. Elie Wiesel's "Night" is one powerful reminder of the flaws in human nature and character.

Wonderfully written, with simple prose and direct explanation, "Night" is an account of a survivor of Auschwitz, the infamous factory of death. Powerful in every way - in emotions, thoughts, memories - "Night" takes the reader to the hellish barracks of the once quaint Polish town and its air suffused with the acrid smell of burning bodies.

Elie Wiesel, himself a holocaust survivor, speaks so clearly that a reader has no choice but to be transported to that time of humans lacking a conscience, with all its horrors and deficiencies. There aren't many books that can achieve this, but "Night" delivers its message and warns the reader of the frailty of human life.

Night is a book of great importance, for within the small volume (120 pages) packs a holocaust story from the first person perspective of the author that describes an entire world like nothing anyone outside of a holocaust survivor's experience could ever imagine. What makes Elie's writing so special is the fact that he truly is a great writer, for this book does so much more than give us the familiar images of trains, concentration camps and crematoriums. It goes beyond the abandoned streets of his little hometown all those years ago to pour out a philosophical viewpoint that burns through question after question. Elie does more than just question why the darkness of man can be ever so present during the early 40s of his teenage years, but also shows the questions that brought so much more pain within his spiritual world. When Elie realized that the closest thing to saving him and his father from the clutches of Auschwitz were rumors of the advancing success of the Russian Army, he and his fellow Jewish prisoners begin to wonder where the very light of God's gentle hand has gone during this, their darkest moment of history.

Night is moving, incredible, sad and informative all at once. It takes you from another time and place, during his childhood, of a simple time and a happy childhood in a town far, far away in Transylvania. The description of the people's opinions of what was going on during the war and that they thought they were just close enough to the edge of the Earth to remain unnoticed lead into a systematic pattern of progressive travel that strips the people of their belongings, then homes, and eventually their very lives.

The reader will be introduced to a cast of people that all add to the power of this story, like the little boy who escaped an incident in the woods, and tried to warn the people of his town, or the woman on the train who kept talking about seeing a fire, even though the lone window bore nothing but darkness (at the time...) as the train rumbled through the night. The gritty detail of this story, of Elie's story...of THEIR story, is hard to bear. This journey of famine and death, of camps that lie under the ever whisping ashes of loved ones burned nearby, and of being uprooted yet again by their captors because of advancing forces to battle further starvation and cold and disease and brutality, is something that stops and makes you think, question, and weep as well.

Elie's story also shows a couple things that are not always portrayed within the various films that portray the holocaust, and that is the strength and will to live that the victims of this atrocity show throughout their ordeal. Another is the flipside, where children and parents were not always in a world within of care and camaraderie, but a dog eat dog survival, where every found bread crumb and every extra minute of breathing amidst the corpses of the fallen leads beyond any barrier or threshold one could envision in terms of pain, forgiveness and anguish. Elie also adds flashback paragraphs here and there, of seeing things later in life that take him back to those days, as well as people he knew from then that he meets later on in life.

The last couple of pages are noteworthy to say the least, which contain his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1986.

-Leo Navarr-

Night is a book of great importance, for within the small volume (120 pages) packs a holocaust story from the first person perspective of the author that describes an entire world like nothing anyone outside of a holocaust survivor's experience could ever imagine. What makes Elie's writing so special is the fact that he truly is a great writer, for this book does so much more than give us the familiar images of trains, concentration camps and crematoriums. It goes beyond the abandoned streets of his little hometown all those years ago to pour out a philosophical viewpoint that burns through question after question. Elie does more than just question why the darkness of man can be ever so present during the early 40s of his teenage years, but also shows the questions that brought so much more pain within his spiritual world. When Elie realized that the closest thing to saving him and his father from the clutches of Auschwitz were rumors of the advancing success of the Russian Army, he and his fellow Jewish prisoners begin to wonder where the very light of God's gentle hand has gone during this, their darkest moment of history.

Night is moving, incredible, sad and informative all at once. It takes you from another time and place, during his childhood, of a simple time and a happy childhood in a town far, far away in Transylvania. The description of the people's opinions of what was going on during the war and that they thought they were just close enough to the edge of the Earth to remain unnoticed lead into a systematic pattern of progressive travel that strips the people of their belongings, then homes, and eventually their very lives.

The reader will be introduced to a cast of people that all add to the power of this story, like the little boy who escaped an incident in the woods, and tried to warn the people of his town, or the woman on the train who kept talking about seeing a fire, even though the lone window bore nothing but darkness (at the time...) as the train rumbled through the night. The gritty detail of this story, of Elie's story...of THEIR story, is hard to bear. This journey of famine and death, of camps that lie under the ever whisping ashes of loved ones burned nearby, and of being uprooted yet again by their captors because of advancing forces to battle further starvation and cold and disease and brutality, is something that stops and makes you think, question, and weep as well.

Elie's story also shows a couple things that are not always portrayed within the various films that portray the holocaust, and that is the strength and will to live that the victims of this atrocity show throughout their ordeal. Another is the flipside, where children and parents were not always in a world within of care and camaraderie, but a dog eat dog survival, where every found bread crumb and every extra minute of breathing amidst the corpses of the fallen leads beyond any barrier or threshold one could envision in terms of pain, forgiveness and anguish. Elie also adds flashback paragraphs here and there, of seeing things later in life that take him back to those days, as well as people he knew from then that he meets later on in life.

The last couple of pages are noteworthy to say the least, which contain his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1986.

Chilling personal account of the Holocaust. Scary....the atrocities are horrific. Very relevant to present day issues, wherever atrocities are committed in the name of race, religion, political beliefs ....in Rwanda, Palestine, Darfur, Myanmar, Iraq etc. Only if we could learn from history, and manage to live in peace....

I've read other books about the Holocaust that were much better written than this one. Much better! Maybe it was a problem with the translation, I'll never know.

I'd recommend other books on the subject, but not this one.

"Night" is a rarity: an example of Holocaust art or literature that doesn't find melodrama or meaning in genocidal suffering.

Here's the storyline: Jews are deported to camps, where the weak are murdered and the strong are enslaved. The slaves are quickly dehumanized by fear, hunger and exhaustion. They fight over crumbs of bread; they break faith with one another; they lose faith in God. As Germany collapses, they are marched to new camps in the dead of winter. They freeze to death in the snow; they are shot like dogs. Their torment only ends when the Germans are defeated by the Allies. Along the way, a pious teenage boy sees the truth about the world and becomes an atheist.

The writing is spare and economical. The victims come across as victims, not as heroes. They don't emerge from black and white into a world of technocolor. It all happened. "Night" should be read by every educated person.

"Night" doesn't find melodrama -- let alone meaning -- in the Holocaust.

Here's the storyline: Jews are deported to concentration camps, where the weak are murdered and the strong are enslaved. Fear, hunger and exhaustion dehumanize the slaves. They fight over crumbs of bread; they break faith with one another; they lose faith in God. As Germany collapses, they are marched to new camps in the dead of winter. They freeze to death in the snow; they are shot like dogs. Their torment only ends when the Germans are defeated by the Allies. Along the way, a pious teenage boy sees the truth about the world and becomes an atheist.

The writing is spare and economical. The victims come across as victims, not as heroes. "Night" should be read by every educated person.

"Night" doesn't find melodrama let alone meaning in the Holocaust.

Here's the story: Jews are deported to camps, where the weak are murdered and the strong are enslaved. Fear, hunger and exhaustion dehumanizes the slaves. They fight over crumbs of bread; they break faith with one another; they lose faith in God; they freeze to death; they are shot like dogs. Their torment ends when the Germans are defeated by the Allies. Along the way, a pious teenage boy sees the truth about the world and becomes an atheist.

"Night" should be read by every educated person.

"Night" doesn't find drama let alone meaning in the Holocaust.

Here's the story: Jews are deported to camps; some are selected for immediate murder, others are enslaved; the spirits of the slaves are slowly broken; they fight over crumbs of bread; they abandon one another; they lose faith in God; they freeze to death; they are shot like dogs when they fall by the wayside; and they are liberated only when the war ends. Along the way, a teenage boy is converted to atheism.

"Night" should be read by every educated person.

This little book is one of the many accounts of life in the concentration camps during WWII, but is considerably different from some other accounts such as "The Hiding Place". Wiesel uses stark simplicity to tell his story, rather than extensive descriptives. It is, in fact, the very simplicity in which he brings you into the emotion of the story, that makes this such a brilliant book.

"Night" is a book about a Jewish teenager named Elie Wiesel. He and his family are taken into a concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He and his father are separated from the rest of his family. They do everything they can to survive. They are then moved to another camp known as Buchenwald which is even more cruel than the first. It is here where Elie and his father must try their best to hold on to their lives and pray, pray that it will all end soon.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It made me feel a lot of different emotions such as anger and sadness. There were even some parts that made me say things like "no way" because they were sad but were true. Another reason I liked the book was that it had a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter that made you want to keep reading more. Every chapter was also filled with excellent descriptions that kept you hooked to the book. It also reminded me of another great book about the holocaust called "Because of Romek."

The author, Elie Wiesel, has a very unique style of writing. Whenever he would want to show a passing of time or a new event occurring, he uses breaks between paragraphs. This was very helpful when I was reading because it helped let me know that something new was going on or that it was a different time and location. In order to make help accentuate the main point of a new event, he would capitalize the first few words of a new paragraph after a break. I also found this very helpful because it let me know what he was going to talk about until the next break in paragraphs or the end of a chapter.

I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good non-fiction about the holocaust. Because they are first hand accounts from the author, it makes it even more captivating. Also, I feel this is a great book for fans of "Because of Romek" because it is just as unique and emotional.

Audio. I have put both this book and Sophie's Choice off for a long time. The subject matter is just to aborhant to me that I truly had a hardtime trying to stomach it and just couldn't force myself to read them. Having said that, I think I let my imagination run away with itself because I wasn't as drawn in by this book as I thought I would be. Maybe because I wouldn't let myself. Maybe because the writing wasn't as gut wrenching at I assumed it would be. Maybe because man's inhumanity to man isn't so "new" or "surprising" anymore.

It's a short book....Thank You Mr Wiesel for that...because I don't think I could have taken much more sorrow and pain from the re-living of your story.
I was 'devastated' after reading this book. Not that I'm stupid and haven't seen documentaries, movies (Schindler's list) etc. Not that I didn't KNOW!! Not that I haven't MET people with the numbers tattooed on their forearms.
This book was a PERSONAL story of the holocaust and he had the audacity to put this all on paper after it happened.
This is a MUST read....may actually make you more tolerant.

This new translation of Elie Wiesel's novel, Night, by his wife is extraordinary. I am a Literature teacher using this novel to educate my students on the Holocaust through Wiesel's eyes. They are listening to this narrated version while studying the novel, and I must say that this version is the best I've heard. (and I've heard many)
The narrator's voice adds life to this horrific tale, making it even more realistic to the listener.

This book was an excellent book, easy to read and really touches your heart. I will definitely be reading Mr. Wiesel's other works.

This book is a great one. Wiesel really captures you in his life at the time which is kind of scary. It is almost like you are there with him in his life when you are reading it. The only thing I didn't care for is that I had to read it in a class that the book was kind of irrelevent to the class. In other words in this class we should not be studying the holocaust but we are.

Night by Elie Wiesel is not only one of the definitve works on Holocaust literature, it is one of the most definitve works on humanity.
This is a factual record of Wiesel's experiences from 1941, when the author was 12 years old, dedicated to learning Talmud and thirsting to learn Kaballah, to his experiences after Jews were forced into ghettoes and then transported to the death camps.
Written in Yiddish in 1958 and translated into English in 1960.
It is a record of Wiesel's childhood in the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. It is dedicated to the memory of Wiesel's parents and his little sister Tzipora who were cruelly murdered in the Nazi inferno.
The book is stark in it's record of everything seen by the author and asks many questions for which answers are difficult to find.
It tells of the vow of Wiesel and a friend in the camp to emigrate to the Land of Israel if they survived, a dream shared by millions who died in and lived through the Shoah.
Perhaps the most horrifying and moving account in the book is when the author reveals how during the first night in Auschwitz, he and his father wait in line to be thrown into a firepit. He watches a lorry draw up beside the pit and deliver its load of children into the fire. While his father recites the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead.
" Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never".
Elie Wiesel has been a voice of conscience in the world ever since this book became known.
He has penned various other bestsellers. His Elie Wiesel Foundation For Human Rights has done valuable work in this field for many years.
In a plea for the plight of his own people today, especially the youth and children of Israel today targeted by terror and forces of genocide (such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Ahmadinejad regime- as well as all who are sympathetic to these anti-Jewish elements) he penned an open letter to President Bush stating: "Please remember that the maps on Arafat's uniform and in Palestinian children's textbooks show a Palestine encompassing not only all of the West Bank but all of Israel, while Palestinian leaders loudly proclaim that 'Palestine extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, from Rosh Hanikra (in the North) to Rafah (in Gaza). Please remember Danielle Shefi, a little girl in Israel. When the murderers came, she hid under her bed. Palestinian gunmen found and killed her anyway. Think of all the other victims of terror in the Holy Land. With rare exceptions, the targets were young people, children and families. Please remember that Israel--having lost too many sons and daughters, mothers and fathers--desperately wants peace. It has learned to trust its enemies' threats more than the empty promises of 'neutral' governments".

Elie Wiesel is atrue voice of truth and conscience.

Night by Elie Wiesel is not only one of the definitve works on Holocaust literature, it is one of the most definitve works on humanity.
This is a factual record of Wiesel's experiences from 1941, when the author was 12 years old, dedicated to learning Talmud and thirsting to learn Kaballah, to his experiences after Jews were forced into ghettoes and then transported to the death camps.
Written in Yiddish in 1958 and translated into English in 1960.
It is a record of Wiesel's childhood in the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. It is dedicated to the memory of Wiesel's parents and his little sister Tzipora who were cruelly murdered in the Nazi inferno.
The book is stark in it's record of everything seen by the author and asks many questions for which answers are difficult to find.
It tells of the vow of Wiesel and a friend in the camp to emigrate to the Land of Israel if they survived, a dream shared by millions who died in and lived through the Shoah.
Perhaps the most horrifying and moving account in the book is when the author reveals how during the first night in Auschwitz, he and his father wait in line to be thrown into a firepit. He watches a lorry draw up beside the pit and deliver its load of children into the fire. While his father recites the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead.
" Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never".
Elie Wiesel has been a voice of conscience in the world ever since this book became known.
He has penned various other bestsellers. His Elie Wiesel Foundation For Human Rights has done valuable work in this field for many years.
In a plea for the plight of his own people today, especially the youth and children of Israel today targeted by terror and forces of genocide (such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Ahmadinejad regime- as well as all who are sympathetic to these anti-Jewish elements) he penned an open letter to President Bush stating: "Please remember that the maps on Arafat's uniform and in Palestinian children's textbooks show a Palestine encompassing not only all of the West Bank but all of Israel, while Palestinian leaders loudly proclaim that 'Palestine extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, from Rosh Hanikra (in the North) to Rafah (in Gaza). Please remember Danielle Shefi, a little girl in Israel. Danielle was five. When the murderers came, she hid under her bed. Palestinian gunmen found and killed her anyway. Think of all the other victims of terror in the Holy Land. With rare exceptions, the targets were young people, children and families. Please remember that Israel--having lost too many sons and daughters, mothers and fathers--desperately wants peace. It has learned to trust its enemies' threats more than the empty promises of 'neutral' governments".

Elie Wiesel is atrue voice of truth and conscience.

Amazing and detailed read. This book will bring tears to your eyes. I hightly recommend it. It shows the horror behind the holocaust.

Wiesel's powerful tale is that much more effective for its harsh glare of reality. And yet, he could have been much more graphic, without going over the top. His descriptions are inescapably matter-of-fact, sheltered within a lurid universe. Wiesel lives in a society gone mad with a terrifying hubris that nurtures mass murder. What can one say about a culture that averts its gaze while gassing millions of "undesirable" groups? Wiesel marches steadfastly through layers of degridation, humiliation and becomes a non-person. The world should read this and behold a pattern of life to avoid. Night can and must make all of us better people.

Reading about the Holocaust is difficult at best. We cringe in the terror of mankind's worst events. Wiesel's timeless, terrifying memories will now always be with us. But, will the memories change us? Perhaps our best hope is that Holocaust readers will become incerasingly aware of the fact that genocide continues in the present. As if we learned nothing from the Holocaust, we were forced to see it again in Cambodia, Rawanda and Darfur. Perhaps more needs to be done to educate young people about the horrors of genicide, least Wiesel's tragedy go unnoticed. That would be the greatest tragedy of all.

Chuck (Ohio)