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Night

Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel

Night

21min

21min

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The Holocaust slithered in like a deadly snake, persuasive, unseen and thoroughly poisonous. It created the right conditions: then it pounced on its prey, suddenly. The Night tells the story of Eiezel, a Romanian Jew, deported as a child to the German concentration camps, victim - like millions of other human beings - of a spiral of events that saw evil take over and then destroy everything that it means to be human: the body, the mind, the emotions, the spirit and faith, dignity, even life itself. From one concentration camp to another, from terrible living conditions to worse ones, until the final mockery of the evacuation: Eiezel loses his loved ones, he loses himself, and even loses God. It took years for him to find the courage to tell this story.

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Analysis and key concepts

01.

A short book becomes one of the most powerful testimonies about the Holocaust

02.

How a small Transylvanian Jewish community lived their days under the impending threat of World War Two

03.

The deportation of foreign Jews

04.

How people manage to ignore something even when it is right before their eyes

05.

The arrival at Birkenau marked the end of the illusion

06.

From Birkenau to Auschwitz, the point of no return

07.

The unskilled workers stay put, but ultimately are headed for a new camp

08.

Eliezer’s faith is revoked

09.

Human beings never want to let go, even after so much inhumanity

10.

Towards the end: father and son still hope for freedom

11.

The evacuation is an escape from everything

12.

Buchenwald

13.

Quotes

14.

Take-home message

01. A short book becomes one of the most powerful testimonies about the Holocaust

The Night is one of many testimonies about a well-known atrocity. Yet, the singular and fragmented style of this autobiographical tale brings to life the outlines of a tragedy which we still struggle to believe, and one which is all too easy to dismiss as history.

02. How a small Transylvanian Jewish community lived their days under the impending threat of World War Two

03. The deportation of foreign Jews

04. How people manage to ignore something even when it is right before their eyes

05. The arrival at Birkenau marked the end of the illusion

06. From Birkenau to Auschwitz, the point of no return

07. The unskilled workers stay put, but ultimately are headed for a new camp

08. Eliezer’s faith is revoked

09. Human beings never want to let go, even after so much inhumanity

10. Towards the end: father and son still hope for freedom

11. The evacuation is an escape from everything

12. Buchenwald

13. Quotes

14. Take-home message

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Many useful tips to:

  • Remember a tragedy that we can all learn from.
  • Realise how close humanity has come to complete moral destruction.
  • Prevent the process by which evil is overlooked because it is misunderstood.
  • Ask ourselves how it is possible that certain events in human history ever took place.

Elie Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor. Born in Romania and a naturalised American Jew, he worked as a writer, journalist, human rights activist, philosopher, and teacher. Wiesel wrote 57 books, the most famous of which is the autobiographical The Night, a fragmented and intense description of the horror he experienced in a concentration camp. To date, the novel is considered one of the masterpieces of Holocaust literature, and has been translated into 30 languages. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Publishing house:

Penguin Books

Year:

2008

Pages:

120

ISBN:

978-0374500016