A horrifying account of one man's survival of the concentration camps during the Nazi regime. This book is quite short--maybe 50 pages or so, but in those few pages Wiesel's words are chilling, devestating and horrifying. And I hope that anyone who reads it might then get a small insight into the worst crime against humanity in the western world and say "never again."

Wow...every page is like a sock in the gut, and like many memoirs full of twisted events, I find myself hoping it isn't true. But what's most remarkable is Wiesel's legacy, how he survived and lived to tell about it as a respected intellectual (this isn't a part of the story). Historically relevant, brutally tragic, painfully morbid. A true story about hanging on to life, and literally losing everything but. It's small enough to read in a day, and that might be the best way to go about it. I read it in small, painful chunks. As I read it, I often felt ashamed of humanity for it's self-destructive cruelty. This story includes the extra detail they didn't put in your history book.

I received this item in a timely matter in great condition! Would do business with again!

As an English teacher, I have my ninth graders read this memoir every year. And every year, I am moved to tears. Not only does Mr. Wiesel tell of his devastating experience of dehumanization in the Holocaust, but he tells it with such eloquence and mastery of the English language, that one would wonder if he was always a writer. This is his first book and it reads like a story written by some of the greatest writers of the literary canon. Be forewarned that his story will change your perspective on life and will most likely you move you to tears as well. If it doesn't, than as my Pastor would say, "your wood is wet."

You may be asking yourself, "why would I want to read something that will just get me upset?" My answer to that is that if we don't get upset, how can we facilitate change? Ignorance leads to bliss? No way--it leads to destruction. Furthermore, antisemitism hasn't gone away. And in the midst of the violence and hatred exploding in the middle east 63 years after Hitler was defeated, there are millions of people who once again want to annihilate the Jews and are devising plans to do just that. So this memoir must be read. Mr. Wiesels' story must be heard.

From the moment we had began on this book in our classes it was truly an eye opener. Words cannot describe the misery that was felt in each and every word this book had within. The book itself had casted night over all of us, especially me as we listened intently on what could be known as the most heart striking tale. From the start of the camp to the death marchings in the snow, the story gives a full eye account of the horror that was seen in the Nazi war. No story ever has been written so amazingly nor dramaticly as this. Yes, it touched me darkly and it burned deeply but this story, this story is something everyone should read because no one should forget what happened so long ago. You cant go your whole life without reading this book, its something that you should not miss.

I give it a rating of five stars and I hope you, the reader, can also find that too.

Night by Elie Wiesel is an excellent first hand account into the atrocities the Jew endured at the German prisoner and slave labor camps of World War II. This volume gives students additional connections into understanding the situations. Excellent version!!!

This is the true story of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. A religious Jew, Wiesel was a young boy during the German invasion. He and his family were taken captive by the Nazis and put into the concentration camps where he witnessed atrocities that destroyed his family and shattered his faith.

Told simply and succintly, this first person account is haunting. Wiesel speaks with a numb detachment, sensationalizing nothing. He asks for no pity. He simply describes what he saw.

It is only one person's point-of-view of perhaps the most important event in modern history, but his testimony feels as big as the Holocaust itself. That this is one of millions of stories that could be told is shocking again, even if you've seen movies or read other books on the topic. You come away from this book with a better understanding of what happened, and many unanswerable questions as to why it happened.

As other reviewers have suggested, this book should be required reading for all high school students.

This was amazing book. This book takes you on the journey of a Jewish boy during the Nazi reign. You may know the stories of the concentration camps but you really can't imagine what they felt like. I would recomend this book to any one.

The author is such a good writer that you'll almost hear the squeak of rusty railroad cars along with muffled sounds of hopelessness from within as they roll down the tracks to the concentration camps.

You can almost smell the odors of less than humane living conditions mingled with the acrid smoke from the crematoriums upon arriving at the death camps.

You'll almost be able to see the look of death in the eyes of the living who have given up as well as the emaciated bodies of those whose suffering had finally ceased.

You'll almost feel the nagging hunger pains of those who sometimes must go without food for days at a time and the bone-drilling cold ache of hands and feet not protected from the sub-zero temperatures.

But you'll also sense the author's strong will to persevere the inhumane cruelties inflicted upon his people to return to the land of the living one day. He did survive and tells his story in a non-fiction selection that reads like a novel.

"Night" by Elie Weisel relates the atrocities of the Holocaust through the eyes of a teenage Jewish boy. As in "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "Schindler's List", it's an unforgettable story that should never EVER be forgotten.

Great telling of a sad story, but factual and interesting. Enjoyed this book and shared it with others

Follows: This cd does follow isbn 0028179668 or 0553272535. Beware of the other translation.

This book is a must-read. I would recommend the version with "Connections", which fleshes out the experience of the holocaust camps. We must never forget...........

This is the horrific tale of a young religious Jew who is transported from Ghetto to Internment Camp. He watches the people he loves get torn apart from him and questions his faith in a God who could allow such violence within human nature.

The violinist playing Beethoven (which was forbidden for Jews to play) as he dies is one of the most moving stories that I've ever read.

Wiesel has captured his pain without weighing down the reader with the depth of his personal tragedy, simply telling the story. The author earns your respect but never asks for your pity.

There is no way you can read this and not be moved. It made me a life long fan of Elie Wiesel. He is, in my opinion, one of the most amazing people in the world. I admire him so much. I have no idea how anyone could have suffered through the Holocaust and lived to tell about it, but I am grateful that he was able to.
This book will make you appreciate your family and life.

I gave this four stars only to ensure the rating is not pulled down unfairly by the worst reader I've ever heard.

I listen to audiobooks all the time, have probably listened to 400 or so. This reading was so horrendously over-acted that it:

1. hurt my ears when he over-acted his plaintive cries, going from soft low volume to loud screeching.

2. was so unbelievable that at one point I reacted by thinking "This isn't true!" Then I realized I was judging the truth of a story from the unbelievable tone of the reader, who is not the author. (I had the same reaction when I listened to Linda Smith on TV crying about her kids at the murder scene, at the time when everyone thought she was the victim. I was so struck with disbelief that I proclaimed out loud to the TC, "She did it!" The point being that one can judge truth by tone of voice.) Then I further realized what a disservice this is to a book about the holocaust, that this terrible (over-)actor would lead people to react in disbelief, exactly where no right-thinking person wants a listener to a book about the holocaust to be led.

0 stars for the reading, and it so overcame any possible absorption in the story, that I can't fairly give a rating on the story itself, maybe 4 stars, maybe 5, I don't know, I'd have to *read* the book.

wiesel writes a mean memoir...but his experiences, as opposed to his literary technique are his real, dare i say, "gift." i was surprised at how straight faced and unmoved i was while reading this novella. he uses punctuation to make up for his lackluster prose (e.g., "dead babies!").

it is so difficult for me to come down on wiesel because he has been such an outstanding spokesperson for human rights (bosnia, iraq, darfur). his experience during the holocaust and his unshattered will are tragic and inspiring...but as a writer? im not sure what to say. and as the title says, the theme of "night" is underdeveloped and i am still not quite sure why he chose it.

you would expect such a memoir to move you, to crush your optimistic views on humanity, but really, growing up in the late 20th century and thus being exposed to the horrors of the holocaust ad nauseum, this novel was just sort of a first hand distillation of what my generation has been told/shown a hundred times over. i understand that it was originally published in 1955, but its oprah-book-club-resurgence needs to be spat upon. in the present day realm of holocaust literature, "night" does not take the cake.

i gave it 4 stars because at 126 pages, everyone should read it. skip an episode of america's next top model and youre done. but i cant help but acknowledge that there is a reason wiesel was given the nobel peace prize, as opposed to the nobel prize for literature.

"Night" is a frightening book written by a man who saw the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand. Elie Wiesel survived years of torture, malnourishment, and dehumanizing conditions as he was forced to travel from one concentration camp to the next during the height of Nazi control. He was separated from his mother and sister and never saw them again. He watched his father gasp his last few breaths before authorities took him away during the night and disposed of him in a crematorium.

This book is a scary and very real. It is like reading the words of a young boy's diary- a young boy who is frightened and appalled at the acts of violence taking place around him; a boy who cannot understand why this is taking place but knows that he must reach for every ounce of courage within him to survive this living nightmare.

The scenes Wiesel describes in this book will stir up all sorts of emotions in every person who reads them. Adults, kids, and even young babies are thrown into fire pits by the Nazis. Thirsty prisoners eat snow in the hope that it will provide some thirst quenching relief. Near- naked people are forced to sleep without any protection on frigid, snowy winter nights. Wiesel describes the events vividly; going from a naive youngster to a hardened prisoner as he is sent from one camp to the next. He is sometimes emotional at first. But after witnessing so much inhumanity he becomes emotionally numb to the injustice around him.

The arrival of the allied forces brought an end to the nightmare for Elie Wiesel and other prisoners. Wiesel's family members were not so lucky and he dedicates this book in memory of the three of them. He never saw his mother or sister after they were separated from him and his father so there is no way to know how they died. No one will ever know exactly how each person perished and the author doesn't offer any predictions. It really doesn't matter at this point anyway. His immediate family is gone, dead at the hands of a government out of control.

This book is short, but it packs a tremendous punch. It serves as a reminder of the potential brutality of some people. And it also serves as a tribute to the human spirit: A tragic book that is also full of hope; showing how one young man was subjected to one of the most terrible human tragedies in history and lived to tell his painful story. It's a powerful read and a page turner from beginning to end.

what an honest author. he had a difficult life that most people would choose to forget rather than share.

It made me think if the stuff the govenment is doing in Iraq and Cuba is like what we r doing to prizoners we tortur and beet.
I hope we dont get no SS consentration camps here.

Beyond and essential read, Night speaks to the reader about fundamental questions at the heart of the human condition. A powerfully moving autobiography, the story of this teenager's journey through the most horrific death camps of Nazi Europe, strips away discussion of anti-semitism and hatred, to present the raw suffering of individual humans, stuck in situations beyond their control. From the establishment of a ghetto in Elie's home town of Sighet, the reader can only watch with growing horror as the young man and his family are swept up in the Holocaust. Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Gleiwitz: some of the most infamous places in modern human history, rise around Elie, as we watch him stripped of absolutely everything. The reader is swept along helplessly, as Hitler's "Final Solution" unfolds - death marches, starvation, selections, cattle-carts full of people, torture, floggings, mass-murder - and as Elie is gradually reduced to nothing more than a 'hungry stomach'.
What will humans do to survive? How important is loyalty, trust, family, faith, when one is faced with the grim reaper? If we cannot even answer these questions ourselves, what chance did a 15-year old boy stand?
Despite its horrific and heart-wrenching subject, "Night" is an essential read for absolutely everyone; something that once read will never be forgotten.

this is a disturbing work in that it recounts a man's experience of the nazi death camps. Warning: this book will shake you up mentally, and emotionally. It is not for the faint of heart. Yet, it is a must read because of the exposure it gives to humanity at it's worst and humanity under it's worst.

The short novel Night has emotional power not only because of the dark subject matter, but because Elie Wiesel is a gifted writer who deftly reveals the spiritual and mental anguish of the main character. Generally considered autobiographical, the account follows a young man who feels he is losing not only God, but his humanity as the Nazi machine ravages Europe. The novel itself deserves 10 stars.

However, the original translation deserves -1. Wiesel's skill as an author is blurred by a clumsy translation. The worst part is when the translator chose the lighthearted "siesta" as a description of Wiesel's first sleep in the labor camp. There is a much better translation out today by Marion Wiesel, and its worth the extra few dollars. This book is more than worth reading; buy the better translation, and you'll understand why Wiesel deserved not just the Nobel Peace Prize, but also the Literature Prize.

The short novel Night has emotional power not only because of the dark subject matter, but because Elie Wiesel is a gifted writer who deftly reveals the spiritual and mental anguish of the main character. Generally considered autobiographical, the account follows a young man who feels he is losing not only God, but his humanity as the Nazi machine ravages Europe. The novel itself deserves 10 stars.

However, the original translation deserves -1. Wiesel's skill as an author is blurred by a clumsy translation. The worst part is when the translator chose the lighthearted "siesta" as a description of Wiesel's first sleep in the labor camp. There is a much better translation out today by Marion Wiesel, and its worth the extra few dollars. This book is more than worth reading; buy the better translation, and you'll understand why Wiesel deserved not just the Nobel Peace Prize, but also the Literature Prize.

No matter your religion, ethnicity or basic beliefs, everyone should read this book because it is about hamanity and how it can change from mundane to total hell for no reason.

What more can be said which already hasn't of this extraordinary book written by an extraordinary man of courage? With 900+ reviews, I will not make this an overly elaborate review, as the book simply does not require it. Elie Wiesel's story is one of one man's courage, will and fortitude to push on when all around him was lost; friends, family, belongings, even basic human dignity.

What struck me more than anything else from his personal story was the retelling of the hanging of the three men (well, two men and one boy) while he was in one of the concentration camps. Millions perished, but the way the boy who suffered during the hanging stayed with me. His story is the story of millions who perished and who never got to tell their tale, and one of the few books I would call a must read.

Different instances in the book I am quite sure will strike readers differently. One of the things which struck me and stayed with me was how he kept on looking for God, even amidst the enormity man sometimes will carry out on his fellow man. What also struck me was the woman on the train who was saw the flames at the camps even before they arrived. And the times he scolded and questioned himself and his ethics for even thinking selfish thoughts even though he was dying. I still think would I (could I?) do the same if I was in his terrible position?

This book shows the worst of mankind, and sadly this terrible event known as the holocaust is not entirely unique in man's history since the freeing of Elie Wiesel. We have witnessed Rwanda firsthand in the 1990's, and have been told by world authorities that "this will never happen again." Yet in modern day Sudan(and North Korea, and Tibet.....), we see much of the same.....the world turning its back on millions of people. There may not be furnaces involved, but the crime of complicity through inaction is little different than a world which allowed human beings to be fed into furnaces. I guess the final question I come away asking from his book is "Will mankind ever learn?"

Night is Wiesel's personal memoir, which relates his personal story before and during World War II, as he and his father are separated from his mother and sister and interned in a series of concentration camps.

"Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

I read Night in high school, and always think of it as being a particularly long book, which it is not. Wiesel manages to pack more than I would think possible into a little over a hundred pages, which relates the story of himself and his family during the Holocaust. It is a beautifully written work that relates a terrible story. I found the story of Wiesel's loss of faith and the relationship he had with his father particularly memorable. If you somehow missed this in high school, pick it up, if you didn't, find it again. It's worth it.

I always wonder what makes a book a good story to nominate for a Pulitzer prize? Even though I knew NIGHT was about the holocaust I still wondered what would make this book a winner.
My son had a copy of the book and loaned it to me. I read it in one sitting and not because it is only about 100 pages long, but because I was able to get under the skin of a man who endured unspeakable experiences and survived and found some humanity in all the horror. I love the last line of the book...priceless.

Reading this book with my high school students led to some of the best literary discussions I've ever had with young adults. So many reviews on Amazon.com have extolled the virtues of this story. One review caught my attention-mactan's review asking why there was no mention of gas chambers by Wiesel. NIGHT does address the crematoriums as the "crazy" woman on the train keeps yelling of the fires and those on the train who hated her constant yelling realize the truth as they see the smokestacks from the crematoriums. Also, AUSCHWITZ DID NOT HAVE GAS CHAMBERS. See Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees for an explanation of why this is true- and why the portion of the camp system known as Birkenau DID HAVE GAS CHAMBERS.

I cried through the book at people's cruelty and hardness of heart but saw glimpses of hope throughout. It's so important to never forget...a recommended read for all.

I enjoyed reading this book, a tearjerker, but very good reading. I would recommend it highly.

I read this book in school twice, and recently read it again for my own purposes. Wiesel writes not as someone trying to sell a book, but as someone who was tortured and saw his own family, loved ones, and strangers die for their faiths, beliefs, politics, and heritages. As a young man, this tested and nearly destroyed his faith: A battle that many of us struggle with in lesser ways. Elie Wiesels 'Night' is not just a story, but an epic and a reminder of the extent of human cruelty and suffering. An excellent book, not for younger audiences (12+) but a crucial part of any education, school age or older.

As hard as it is to hear about the unthinkable evil that existed during the Holocaust, we must remember that it did, indeed, happen. Elie Wiesel's Night is a brutally honest report of the torture that occurred in the concentration camps, and how it not only destroyed the prisoners physically but emotionally as well. Night reminds us to never forget the evil and the inhuman actions that were taken upon these innocent people-for if we forget, it may happen again. Wiesel writes the novel as an account of his personal experience, but it explains how everyone was treated and how everyone was affected. Wiesel portrays very honestly and very clearly that the [...] destroyed these people. The [...] treated their prisoners as animals, and due to this treatment the prisoners lost their faith, their families, and themselves.
It is hard to believe that such an incredible portrayal of an evil of this measure could fit into roughly one hundred pages. Wiesel did not go into great detail on his personal emotions and thoughts about everything that was happening. He simply gave a frank explanation of what occurred there. The way he wrote it, however, was more eye-opening than any documentary could be. Night captures the horror, the torture, and the sadness of the Holocaust. It is important to read books like Night so that we may begin to understand what happened, and so that we can do everything in our power to prevent it from happening again. It mustn't have been easy for Wiesel to revisit these events while writing Night, but he wrote it to open our eyes to the evil that must never be repeated.

Numerous times I have been assigned the novel, Night, and each time I take something different out of my readings. As a junior school student I read Night as almost a history book. Now, being a young adult, it is clear to me that the novel is a memoir about a painful time in history. Although selections of the text were graphic to say the least, they were eye opening and interesting. The novel was well-written full of detailed descriptions, which is an important quality for a writer to have, so one can get a visual feel for the scene.

It's safe to say that it was difficult for Elie Wiesel to write this novel. Many tales were told about numerous horrific accounts, in which he took part in firsthand. While one may feel the novel is depressing to read, they should understand it was depressing to write also. I cannot be quick to judge the writing skills of Wiesel, when he said himself he was not planning on becoming a writer, and the novel was originally written in French. Wiesel is certainly no Shakespeare, yet he does an incredible job of captivating the reader through his words. If you're looking for a novel that will not only inform you on the Holocaust, but give you firsthand experiences, Night is the book for you. I strongly recommend that you do not read the novel if you are looking for an uplifting book to read on vacation, but this should be expected considering the circumstances of the Holocaust.

Night, by Elie Wiesel is one of the most heart-wrenching and real novels that one may ever have the opportunity to read. It provides us with horrific images of the concentration camps and what the Jews went through from a direct account of the holocaust. Although some of the images are much too graphic for younger readers, this book should be read by everyone at some point in one's life. If we do not have the strength to realize the mistakes of an era, how will things ever get better for generations to come?
For someone to say that this novel is too graphic or too controversial is simply ludicrous. As a society, it is important for us to see things, and really see them, not just look at them and say "Oh, that's too bad." Elie Wiesel presents us with that opportunity in his well-written and honest work, Night. The last line of the novel, in my opinion was the most meaningful. Wiesel describes his body while looking at himself in a mirror for the first time in months. He describes himself as a "corpse." This line gave me chills. It is as straightforward as one can get, and sums up the message of the entire novel in one overwhelming line. Nobody will ever truly understand the appalling events of the holocaust, but Wiesel is willing to tell his story to the world in the most honest and authentic way possible, he achieves this in Night.

The novel, Night, details the horrors of Elie Wiesel's childhood in the concentration camps. It reveals the struggles he faces in his religious beliefs and the fight for his own survival during the Holocaust. The book sends out disturbing images that haunt your minds forever. For example, Eli talks about seeing live born babies being burned to death right in front of his eyes.
I like the way Wiesel is very upfront and personal about his experiences, and it makes the book more real and interesting. It is the type of story that you can't put down. I Believe it must have been difficult for Wiesel to write this deep novel. He had to recall times that he did not want to ever bring up again and share it with many others. Night has opened my eyes to this tragic historic time, leaving me with a clearer understanding on the Holocaust. It is one of many books about World War II, although it is honored and specified from the others by the vivid details and reality that Elie portrays to the reader. His words seem to place you right there with him throughout his entire encounters at these camps. Night is a novel that should be read by all who wish to learn about a real life in the Holocaust.

Night by Elie Wiesel is one of the best non-fiction books I've read. The author does not bore you with dates and useless information. He relates to the common reader and either doesn't use terms that the common reader wouldn't know or explains them in a simple manner. It is a story about his life but he doesn't put to much emotion into it, letting the reader have his or her own emotions towards it. It is the type of story that makes you sad but you have to keep reading it.
He is a very graphic writer because he wants to make sure something like the holocaust never happens again. He uses images that are not meant to scare the reader, but to give him or her the reality of this horror. He took a ten year vow of silence before writing this book and when you read it, you actually feel like you were there. It is an excellent story and historically accurate for those wanting to learn more about the holocaust.

Night by Elie Wiesel, in my opinion, is a 5 star novel. The book was written as a first person account of the horrors of Nazi Germany and portrays a terror stricken boy struggling against a supreme and evil. The book is written in a very serious, informative manner. This was probably the easiest way for Wiesel to share his experience and not become too emotional. The serious tone adds to the grim story line as it follows a young Jewish boy through the ranks of a Nazi concentration camp. One of this book's strong points is its ability to paint a vivid scene in the mind of its readers. Wiesel spares no gory detail as he describes the methods used for a mass genocide. Something I would critique would be the blurry timeline of the story. However, this is easy to forgive as you could imagine there weren't many calendars around the camps.

Being someone who has read this book on several occasions, I find it more and more chilling every time I read it. Elie Wiesel very effectively captures the deep depression and anxiety of the situation by using a lot of dialogue between prisoners. I feel like Wiesel wrote the Novel not in remorse but more in remembrance of those who didn't survive the camp. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know the raw truth behind one of the world's worst crimes against humanity.

This book is a piece of living history that should never be forgotten. It is a great piece of historical literature, and it should be made mandatory for all high schoolers to read and study. I really enjoyed this book even though it was very deep and terrifying at some parts. I think that Elie's writing style is the only way that his message could have gotten across the way it did. He wrote the story very straightforward, without fluff, and told us about this horrible tragedy exactly the way he remembered it.

I think that he may have lost some readers during the more graphic images that Elie wrote about. When he talked about the babies being burned alive, and when the child was hung and it took him almost an hour of hanging on the rope to slowly die. He witnessed the death of his innocence, hi family, and his God. I think that the only way for him to truthfully portray what he experienced in a digestible novel is exactly what he has written and we can never allow it to happen again.

This novel while depressing and hard to read at times is truly a moving piece of literature. Elie Wiesel has much strength to be able to even survive not only one concentration camp but three. I can't imagine not just his physical strength to live on with almost no food and have to work all day but his mental strength to carry him for so long. He has the strength and will power to live on for himself and for his father. He has some weaknesses when he contemplates just giving up and letting go. Also he had a weakness of wanting to get rid of his father who in reality was his support system. His ultimate weakness was loosing his faith because it was a loss of hope and chance for redemption. He never lets his weaknesses get the best of him and his strengths overcome his doubts and carry him to freedom.
This novel is defiantly effective by its hard hitting descriptions and true accounts of the terrible things that took place in the camps. It's hard to swallow some of the things mentioned and it opens your eyes to a world that seems unimaginable. Elie writes the book basically by explaining step by step what happens which wouldn't seem so bad or interesting. But every step is so intense and riveting that you almost can't comprehend what you are reading. His message is loud and clear that what happened was horrendous and should never take place again under any circumstances.

NIGHT is a book so honest that you may not want to know about some of its evil truths, but can not force your eyes away from the page on which they are described. This novel is moving and disturbing, ugly and beautiful. It depicts evil and suffering in such a way that, though so difficult to believe, makes it an absolute treasure to read.
The blatancy and plain truthfulness of the novel allow for it to be heart-wrenching, but not to an exaggerated extent. The fact that it is strictly an account of happenings, not a diary filled with feelings, gives the reader an appropriate amount of emotions without being too emotionally draining. Wiesel leaves it up to the reader to form his or her own opinions and feelings about the events. I believe that a story with this much gravity cannot be written in any other way. The way that this entire book is configured and stylized is absolutely perfect and I wouldn't change a single thing. It takes a hold on you, such a hold that it will never be forgotten.

"Night" by Elie Wiesel is a well written book that makes you want to keep reading. His life story is not the only thing that makes it a great read. It is also the message that he sends out to all the readers. His message is very clear, he wants to show everyone how bad the camps were and the suffering he had to go through. I think that the message in this story is well incorporated in the writing of this book.
Elie has strengths and weaknesses in his writing though. His strong point is showing his emotion in the story. He shows his emotion on the topic through the novel. Another strong point is that he stays on topic through out the novel and does not skip around. One of his weaknesses is he doesn't grab the readers attention in the beginning of the novel.

Night is a very touching book. A book which I believe everyone should read once in their lifetime. The contents of this book are complete. One would not want to change the memories of a holocaust survivor, but the ways in which it is expressed do have some flaws. The biggest blemish of Night is the gaping holes in time. The shifts from one time period to the next are abrupt and left me feeling startled. While this may have been his intent in the first place it left me wondering if anything interesting had been left out. Why leave holes like this in your work? You wait ten years and you limit yourself in this way? This cannot be that large of a demerit to the book because it does add tot eh experience of reading Night. One should not feel totally comfortable reading such matter.


This book really shines in its descriptions. While the book is not three hundred pages long it does do an excellent job of capturing the reader. You can almost feel as if you are there all along with Elie. It's extremely disturbing when he writes about the hangings and killing, because once again you feel like you are right there with him. But what do you expect with a book of this nature? I feel that this book has enlightened me so much more than any history book will ever be able to do. If you want to really get a feel for what hell the Jews had to go through this is the book to read. Let the travesty of the holocaust never happen again.

After reading the novel Night I realized there were several things I liked about it but a few however that I did not like. The best thing that I liked about this book is that the author, Elie Wiesel, was not going to sacrifice the truth of the story to make the things that happened to him sound less impossible. He made you feel like you were in that camp with him; he described all the suffering and pain in such detail that you were affected by the words on the page. Another reason why I enjoyed reading this book is that it is an important subject and everyone needs to know about the Holocaust and this book tells you what happened from someone who was actually there. So overall the novel was made excellent because of the great use of detail by the author.
On the opposite side of the spectrum there are a few things I didn't really like about the book. I personally believed that the book could have been longer. I know it is hard to write about a sore subject like the Holocaust but I think he could have gotten more information out about his years in the camps. Another thing that might make the book less attractive to readers is that this is very heavy material. It is not meant for pleasure reading, if you are looking for a happy read this is not for you. Also some people may not like this book because it does not have a happy ending. The book ends after his father's death and he is liberated from concentration camp all alone in the world. Overall I believe this is a great book and most should read it to get a better understanding of what the Jewish race had to go through and how disturbing it really was.

I found, Night, although extremely depressing throughout, to be very interesting and thought-provoking from so many different aspects of life including dealing with the loss of your home, loved ones, practice of religion and just about everything else. The author portrayed the gory details of his experience first-hand throughout the novel, which kept me mesmerized as I read how he persevered through all of the challenges the Germans presented from beginning to end. The fact that Night was a real life experience and not fiction made me amazed at Elie's inner strength.

Elie Wiesel's strengths as an author are obvious since he is writing from personal experience and presenting the graphic horror of everything that came along with the German's occupation of his homeland and the effects on his life through the concentration camps. I would strongly recommend Night based on its valuable history lesson but also based on its personal perspective of such a horrible time in the history of humanity.

The book Night, by Elie Wiesel, explores the idea of a young man experiencing the horrific and traumatic events of the Holocaust, in which thousands of innocent people lost their lives because of their religion. This book describes the terrible actions the Nazi party took in their attempt to create a master race by exterminating the Jewish people. Elie Wiesel's description of life in various concentration camps helps the reader to understand the reality of the terrible persecution Jews went through in WWII.
In the concentration camps, the German soldiers used brutal methods of getting what they wanted from the prisoners. Sometimes they would beat the prisoners, either because the prisoners did something wrong or just because they felt like it, and other times they would shoot the prisoners to make an example out of them. This would prove to the prisoners that the soldiers were serious and it would intimidate them so they would follow the rules. Even the Kapos, prisoners who led the blocks/barracks of prisoners, were awfully cruel to the other prisoners.
While in the camps Elie is faced with many challenges. He first separates from his mother and sister. He later faces several selections knowing that each could be his last. Soon after, he witnesses the death of his father, and although there was nothing he could have done to stop them, he blames the soldiers. This book tells of the frightening and true account of a young man who has, what it seems like is, the entire world against him.

I believe that the novel Night is a great read because it gives insight into the life of an prisoner in a concentration camp. Elie is a boy who is struggling in a concentration camp who has lost everything except his father Elie and his father make it all the way through the concentration camp until they arrive at the final concentration camp. There, in Buchenwald, Elie's father dies slowly from sickness. Upon his father's death Elie is extremely shocked. Nothing else can faze him after his father's death. Long after being liberated from the camp that caused him so much pain, Elie writes this novel, It is a fairly easy to get through, and keeps you interested throughout. The reader is hit in the heart when they read what Elie's life has been like.

Night is a very good book that shows you how horrible the holocaust was. The book takes place during1941, at the beginning of World War II. I myself am not really that into reading but this book keeps you going and it makes you want to read on. Night will make you feel as if you know the characters and you really start to care about what happens to them. I would want to read on when Eli's father is up for selection, I would read just to see if he made it or not. The book starts off with a boy and his family, who live in a Jewish community. The Germans then move them to a "ghetto", which had awful living conditions and you could not leave without having a pass. Then the Germans then moved all the Jews from the ghetto to one of the most deadly concentration camps. The ride to the concentration camp was miserable. Train wagons were crowed until no more people could fit. People could not sit down it was so crowed. When all the Jews come to the camp Eli is separated from his sisters and mother, Eli and his father now have to do everything they can to survive in a place that must have been the closes thing to hell on earth. They go through everything from just missing the selections for the crematories to if they stop running they will be killed. The book fallows the two until the very end of their struggle in the concentration camp.

As horrible as Wiesel's Auschwitz experiences at the hands of the bestial Germans supposedly were, when he was given the choice to either remain in the camp as the Soviets approached and thus be liberated, or to be evacuated to Buchenwald by said beasts, he inexplicably chose the latter. This, despite his claim of being hospitalized at the time with a foot injury and the fact that his father, whom he would have had to bring along, was sick and would probably not survive the evacuation and who in fact died of dysentery shortly after arriving at Buchenwald.

A good review of Wiesel's career, including Night, can be found in a November 2004 article entitled 'Elie Wiesel And The Catholics', written by David O'Connell, who is professor of French at Georgia State University in Atlanta and which was published in the November, 2004 issue of Culture Wars magazine (culturewars.com/2004/Weisel.htm). The article includes an unflattering critique of Night, with the following quotes from various commentators:

"...you have Rabbi Kahane, the Jewish extremist, who is less dangerous than a man like Elie Wiesel, who says anything that comes to mind. . . You just have to read parts of Night to know that certain of his descriptions are not exact and that he is essentially a Shoah merchant. . . who has done harm, enormous harm, to historical truth."

and:

"Elie Wiesel's memoir is written by a man whose inner postures have gone so long unreviewed he cannot persuade us he is on a voyage of self-discovery, the first requirement of a testament. His book, I am sorry to say, gives being witness a bad name."

and:

"Is there any more contemptible poseur and windbag than Elie Wiesel? I suppose there may be. But not, surely, a poseur and windbag who receives (and takes as his due) such grotesque deference on moral questions."

The O'Connell article also quotes Wiesel's grotesquely exaggerated account of having been struck by a car in New York:

"In the meantime, Wiesel moved to New York, where he continued to work as a correspondent for an Israeli newspaper. Shortly after his arrival, he was struck by a car near Times Square. Given to exaggeration by nature, he later claimed: "I flew an entire block. I was hit at 45th Street and the ambulance picked me up at 44th. It sounds crazy. But I was totally messed up."

One of the things the O'Connell article does not happen to mention in regard to Night, is a particularly revealing and criminal event, as described in the original Yiddish version of the book. This version was entitled 'And the World Forgot' (Un Di Velt Hot Geshvign), published in Buenos Aires in 1955 and which ran to 245 pages, considerably longer than both the subsequent French and English versions.
The event occurred shortly after the liberation of the Buchenwald camp and Wiesel described it as follows:

"Early the next day, Jewish boys ran off to Weimar to steal clothing and potatoes. And to rape German girls [un tsu vargvaldikn daytshe shikses]. The historical commandment of revenge was not fulfilled."

Wiesel subsequently changed this description for the French version, to read:

"Le lendemain, quelques jeunes gens coururent ? Weimar ramasser des pommes de terre et des habits - et coucher avec des filles. Mais de vengeance, pas trace."

and the English version, to read:

"On the following morning, some of the young men went to Weimar to get some potatoes and clothes - and to sleep with girls. But of revenge, not a sign."

This important difference between the original Yiddish version and the subsequent French and English versions was first pointed out in an essay entitled 'Elie Wiesel and the Scandal of Jewish Rage', written by Naomi Seidman, who is a professor of Jewish Culture at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California (vho.org/aaargh/fran/tiroirs/tiroirEW/WieselMauriac.html).
(As an aside, the "historical commandment of revenge" Wiesel refers to in the Yiddish version of events, "originates" and is "sanctioned in Jewish history and tradition", according to Seidman and other sources).

Wiesel has been recognized as a charlatan by those researchers who have bothered to look critically at his outrageous claims, much like his fellow authors Binjamin Wilkomirski, who wrote the completely fictional 'Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood' and Bernard Holstein, who penned the comical 'Stolen Soul', the difference being only that Wiesel apparently did spend time in a camp.

Potential readers of this book, as well as those who have already read it, should do themselves a favor and read the article by David O'Connell, the Naomi Seidman essay, as well as numerous other insightful references that can be found by Googling the internet, instead of simply accepting the mass-media's promotion of certain political agendas at face value.

The fact that common criminals such as Wiesel are rewarded with honorary degrees - not to mention a Nobel prize - is yet more testimony to the ubiquitous influence wielded by his co-tribalists in all facets of western society, an influence that is slowly but surely strangling said society, along with our centuries-old traditions of justice and freedom.

Night by Elie Wiesel takes place in Sighet, Transylvania, a Jewish community. The main character, Elie, lives with his father, mother, two older sisters and one younger sister. The year the story takes place is 1941, and Germany is starting the holocaust. Elie is 12 years old, and him and his father take a journey through the holocaust as victims.

The main theme in the story is individual versus society. Elie is constantly battling with himself against the German society, and he nor anyone who was a victim of the holocaust can understand why the Jewish population was exterminated. Another common theme is living with death. In the book, 10 people that Elie knew are killed over 10 different nights.

This was a very good book, and I would recommend it to almost anyone. It is a short book, yet packs a good amount of information, and is an excellent portrayal of the worst of human society. The book flows very well, and is very easy to understand as well. So pick up this book, it is definitely worth it.

After honoring his vow of silence for ten years, Elie Wiesel first published a Yiddish version of his Holocaust story in 1956. An English translation of the shortened French version of Night appeared in 1960. Night is a series of memories, there are many cases where either "forgetting" or "remembering" plays a significant role in the narrative:

At Buna, Elie is beaten by Idek the Kapo and a young French girl comes to his aid and tells him to keep his anger and hatred for another day. Years later, Elie Wiesel recalls running into her in Paris. They reminisce about the days in the concentration camp. Such memories are hard to forget.

Elie cannot forget the smile his father shows him even in the midst of his suffering. "I shall always remember that smile. From which world did it come?"

"Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one 'last night' to another?"

Today Elie Wiesel is well known for his statement, '...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.'