This astonishing and very moving book is based on Elie Wiesel's youth in concentration camps during WW2. It begins with his childhood in Hungary, then his family's incarceration in a Jewish ghetto, then to Auschwitz (where he last sees his mother and sister) and later to Buchenwald. "Night" is made all the more haunting and powerful by the way that it is written so simply, in a matter of fact tone. Wiesel displays absolutely no self-pity as he describes the way that the Nazis wore them down and stripped them of their humanity, so that they were merely existing in a state of indifference to their fellow prisoners. The only thing that sustained him was being able (through both luck and determination) to remain with his father.

Last year I read the novel "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" and while that is moving, it is Disney-lite in comparison to this.

I have always wondered about some aspects of the Holocaust: why did more Jews not leave their countries when they had the opportunity do do so? Why didn't they heed warnings about what was happening elsewhere? Why did more not resist their oppressors? Wiesel explains this beautifully (within the parameters of his own experience).

When we think of concentration camps so often it is the gas chambers that is foremost, but Wiesel also captures so many other horrors: men so starved that they will kill one another for a few crumbs of bread, being force-marched many miles through the snow, the terror of making the wrong decision on the rare instances when they were given a choice in some aspect of their fate.

This is a hauntingly sad, wonderful book.

Night by Elie Wiesel


Did you ever stop to think about what happened in World War II? Why so many people lost their lives? Why families were separated? Why these camps were put up to demolish races? Elie Wiesel wrote Night for us to remember that this tragedy shouldn't happen again. He explains his life and the disasters of World War II.the horror of Nazi /fascist death camps and memories of evil are summarized in Night.
Elie Wiesel writes about himself as a little boy in World War II. There was a group of men, from the village, that were removed by the Nazis. A rather smart, quiet man who was called Moshe the Beadle returned to the village with a bullet in his leg and a scar on his soul. He was one of the men taken from the village, but faked his death. He begged the village to believe him but they laughed and said he was crazy. No one wanted to believe Moshe even though the town was going through the steps of disengagement and disaster. Elie experienced Jewish ghetto and death camps. Nazis would search the corners constantly. He couldn't play or talk with the other kids. He and his family are taken to a concentration camp and he witnesses his family's death. He starts to disbelieve in God and starts questioning himself. He constantly repeats it in his mind that this may never happen again. That singling out people because of their religion, color, or disabilities is not right and shouldn't happen again.
I have read many books about World War II but none of them gave me as much as information as Night. I've read The Upstairs Room, Coming Evil, and the Devils Arithmetic's, but I haven't got into as much as depth as in this book. These books are very similar because they are all about kids in World War II that are trying to capture freedom. The biggest strength of Night is description of the time and the place of the event. For example he says, "There was joy- yes joy. Perhaps they thought that God could have devised no torment in hell worse than that of sitting there among the bundles, in the middle of the road, beneath a blazing sun; that anything would be preferable to that." He also describes the characters very well. How they walk and how they talk is like a picture in your head. I think Elie should be more specific on telling the reader how much time has past because sometimes I got lost at some points because Elie misinforms me of the time during some parts of Night. I think he did a very good job on titling the book but you will find out why when you read it.
In conclusion, this book has something for all readers. I believe it is a complete book because it has good description, very nice wording, and is factual. I would read this book again and again. This book is noted in Oprah's favorite books read; this gives you more reason to read it.

Profound, haunting, and quite simply one of the best-written, most heart-wrenching books I have ever had the honor of reading. This book should be added to every high-school curriculum so that no child goes forward in life not understanding the profoundness of evil of which human beings are capable. Wiesel delves into your soul with this dark, engaging, necessary autobiography.

One of the main circumstances that made the Holocaust possible and still fuels the doubters that question whether it happened is that it is so unbelievable. The idea that a modern nation would develop the policy to simply exterminate an entire race of people was inconceivable before it happened. When the Jews of Wiesel's hometown of Sighet were told that the Nazis were killing all Jews, they reacted with disbelief. This was not just simply denial; there were many logical reasons to believe that it was just a vicious rumor. They could think of no reason why the Germans would kill off a valuable human asset, one that could aid them in their battle with their enemies.
Unfortunately, as any intelligent person now understands, it was a brutal reality. Wiesel was a teenager when he and his Jewish neighbors were rounded up and taken to Auschwitz. Their lives immediately changed from one of neighborly assistance to one of every person for themselves, where the most precious item was food. Like so many other people, Wiesel was willing to barter everything he had, including the golden crown on his tooth, for more food. Children beat their own parents in the struggle for food and the most common thought when someone died was concerning whether they could get their food ration. Death was with them constantly; people lived for one day at a time.
As a student of history, I know that the Holocaust took place, yet there are times when I find it difficult to fathom. The idea that people, including children, could be tossed into fires like old newspapers and that assembly line tactics would be invented to kill people is a difficult one to accept. My daughter read this book in her high school language arts class and she recommended that I read it. After doing so, I am happy that it is part of the reading curriculum, as it is a story that must never be forgotten. While this will not guarantee that it will never happen again, it will reduce the chances.

This was an amazing book. Anyone wanting to study WW2 and or just the Holocaust, this is the book to read. I rate it right up there with the Diary of Anne Frank. It is an amazing story that pulls you so you can't put it down!

There was obviously no joy for Elie Wiesel in writing this grisly memoir of life in a concentration camp. These are not moments to savor, to cherish, to grinningly share with the grandchildren. The darkest period of human history is recounted with no sugar coating; laid out stark and cold so that all of humanity can bear witness.

To find a reason to carry on when your world is systematically stripped bare and your soul is skewered without explanation is a challenge for even the greatest of heroes. However, Wiesel offers himself up not as a hero but rather as a subject of self-excoriation, examining the flaws of charcter that separate mice from men even in times such as those depicted. The keen observation of a teenager in the maws of death; its perfect reflection manifested in print from the perspective of later age; and the tragic but poignant description of the bonds between father and son were all reasons I could not put this book down. Wiesel reminds us with poetic gravitas of all the reasons why a nightmare such as Nazi Germany must never happen again.

I learned four things from this book. First; people are capable of doing the most horrific of deeds to each other. I seriously hope I would never do those types of things; but I have never been put in that type of situation. Second; other people are able to allow these things to happen without intervening. This is trickier, because it happens all of the time; we know bad things happen far away and feel others will take care of it. How would I react if it were happening in my own community? Third; we have a hard time accepting extremely bad news. The Jewish community had first hand accounts of the atrocities being committed, but didn't believe them. I've always wanted to believe the best and am not sure I would have acted any differently than the majority of the Jews from his little town. Fourth; some people are capable of surviving the most horrific and trying things. I'm not sure I would have been one of the survivors; it would have been easy to just give up and die. I'm so very glad that there were survivors to tell the story.

It is very interesting to see different reactions to horrible suffering as seen in the Holocaust. Wiesel documents his loss of faith in God; which would be easy to understand. As a contrast; I would recommend Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning; which documents another survivor and how he dealt with the horrors around him.

This short book is a must read. It got me thinking.

In this true account of a man who has lived trough one of history's biggest atrocity, you'll find a boy facing a cold world. Forced to grow up much too fast, he becomes a man, who has to ask the important questions and has to live with the answers no matter how vague and how inconclusive. I don't know how he still believes in God.

The beauty of this book lies in Elie Wiesel's ability to turn everything we know inside-out. He succeeds in taking something so extraordinary large as the Holocaust, and transforming it into something intimate and extremely personal through his restrained voice.

Through his eyes, in equal turns subjective and dispassionate, the banal becomes terrifying, the terrifying becomes everyday"normal". In a heartbeat, hope gives way to despair, but despair just as quickly can give way to hope. Wiesel's world inside the concentration camps is a world gone mad, that he manages to contain in a strange sanity that helps us, the reader, grasp and understand a small bit of what he and others experienced in Nazi Germany.

Best of all, Wiesel's restrained voice makes this book suitable for a mature, young adult reader. The story is terrifying, but it is not told with the intent to terrify the reader. The ultimate message of the work is one of hope, survival and humanity.

I listened to Night unabridged on audio CD, performed by Jeffery Rosenblatt. Rosenblatt succeeds in the ultimate task of a performer for a work like this - not going over the top, staying true to the author's voice, and letting the words and story speak for themselves.

If you come across someone who wonders whether or not human beings are totally depraved, hand them a copy of this book. Night is a short book describing Wiesel's year in Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

The book begins with Wiesel's family living peacefully in Transylvania during the later years of World War II. Trouble seems distant though rumors abound. The Jewish community in Sighet continues to live and love just as before. Wiesel tells about a devout Jewish man who had witnessed the horrors of a concentration camp and escaped. Upon arrival in the village, he began to warn everyone of the impending danger. But the villagers scoffed at his warnings. They did not believe that humans were capable of such evil. Even after the Jews were moved to the ghetto, Wiesel describes his family as still hoping and trusting that nothing worse would take place.

Then, the concentration camp. Wiesel describes in horrific detail the "chimney," - the place where Jews (even babies) were thrown alive into a blazing fire. Wiesel rebels against God. He refuses to fast on Jewish holy days. He questions the existence of God. The human evil of Auschwitz is too overwhelming to comprehend. Wiesel claims that human words cannot express the suffering he experienced.

Throughout the narrative, Wiesel expresses shock and dismay at the evil of his persecutors. But intermingled into his account is his surprise at his own depravity manifested in his basest instincts. His recollections are littered with regret, with anger, and remorse.

Wiesel's account forces the reader wrestle with questions about human depravity, God's sovereignty, the reason for suffering. The most disturbing scene in the book takes place when an innocent boy only 12 years old is forced to die, though he did not commit the crime for which he is punished. He and three others are placed on the gallows and hanged. The rest of the prisoners are forced to walk by and look squarely into the faces of the executed. But "the third rope was still moving. The child, too light, was still breathing... And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writing before our eyes..."

"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...'"

This account is a turning point for Wiesel. In his thoughts at that time, God is dead. Yet, as a Christian, I sense something deeper in this story. In the midst of human suffering and evil, I too look to an Innocent One dying an excruciating death. And when considering the depth of human evil and the love of a good God, I too ask, "Where is God?" and then see the form of a cross. "He is here, hanging on this tree..."

Night is a book that truly makes you think and feel. What happened to the Jewish people is devastatingly awful.My mom homeschools my siblings and they chose to listen to Night on audio tape. Everyone was enraptured in Elie's story wanting to know what happened to him. I think everyone should read Elie's story or hear it at some point in your life, because it makes you grateful for your own life and because everyone should know what the Germans did to the Jews. That time in history should never be forgotten.

I want to point out that George Guidall did a remarkable job narrating the book Night. I homeschool, and chose to do Night as one of our books for this year. My kids were horrified with what one human could do to another. It struck all of our hearts on a daily basis when we would turn on the next CD. This book is a must read. The horrific injustice the Jewish people undertook will never be forgotten and shouldn't be by anyone.

This short book, which is largely autobiographical, reads like a nightmare. It will shake you, even if you are fully aware of the evils of the Holocaust. This book should be required reading in high school or college. In this book, mankind is forced to confront the issue of evil. This is a philosophical concept but real-life evil of man against man. Only when we understand mankind's capacity to commit Holocaust can we stand against it in the future. Thank you to Elie Wiesel for the courage to tell these stories to the world in the hope that something like this will never happen again.

Love this book! Not a happy, feel good read but something that everyone should read and understand. It's hard to imagine the horror faced by the author but he does such a great job describing the events.

Love this book! Not a happy, feel good read but something that everyone should read and understand. It's hard to imagine the horror faced by the author but he does such a great job describing the events.

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.