"Night" by Elie Wiesel

Hello and welcome to my second blog. Today  I’ll be discussing an autobiographical memoir called Night by Elie Wiesel. In this book, Wiesel talks about his time during the holocaust and his experience in the concentration camps. First let’s discuss the author. Eliezer Wiesel is a Jewish author, professor, and human rights activist. He was born in Romania, in a small village called Sighet. He mostly writes about the Holocaust, using his own experiences. He won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal. He died July 2, 2016, due to illness, at the age of 87, in Manhattan.

Night is about a teenage boy named Eliezer before the Holocaust and how he was a very religious person and wanted to learn more about his faith. Then we see the story that everyone starts turning on the Jews. Later, we see that they’re forced out of their homes and sent to ghettos,Elizer and all the women in his family, his mother, and his two older sisters, Beatrice and Hilda, and his younger sister, Tzipora, were separated, leaving Elizer with his father. They were later sent to concentration camps and forced to do  labor. They were dehumanized, not treated fairly, and only had bread and soup. Elizer faces hardships everyday trying to survive. He also gets beaten and his morality decreases. As the story goes on, we see Eliezer is starting  to question his faith and god.  By the end Elizer miraculously survives and he is free, but he is permanently scarred for life. 

Eliezer’s father, Shlomo is a very important character in the story. At the start of this book,we see that Eliezer and Shlomo didn’t have a close relationship, emotional-wise. He is well respected and optimistic. As a community leader in their town, Elizer thought that his father cared about their community more than his own family . He didn't even approve of Elizer’s religious studies. Their relationship transforms and improves as they are transported from camp to camp. They realized they only had each other and promised to be there for each other. As they endure the harshness of the camps, Shlomo becomes weaker, and is ultimately burdening Elizer. Shlomo represents familiarity and hope, because without them by each other's side, I’m sure they would have given up.

I loved Night . This is my second time reading this book. It’s a really sad book, but it has a lot of life lessons someone can learn from. I like the dynamic of Eliezer and his father and how they didn't leave each other's side and supported each other all the way even when the world around them was falling apart. It was well paced and had a lot of side anecdotes that contributed to how Elizer turned out as a person. I definitely recommend this book because it’s very educational and gives you a different perspective on the world. This book shows that no matter how hard life gets or changes, family will always be there. It also teaches that keeping your humanity and having hope will help you see the silver lining.