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Night Mass Market Paperback – September 10, 2013
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A new translation from the French by Marion Wiesel. Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps.
This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man's capacity for inhumanity to man.
Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.
- Print length144 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHill and Wang
- Publication dateSeptember 10, 2013
- Dimensions4.15 x 0.3 x 6.7 inches
- ISBN-100374534756
- ISBN-13978-0374534752
- Lexile measure590L
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“A slim volume of terrifying power.” ―The New York Times
“Required reading for all humanity.” ―Oprah Winfrey
“Wiesel has taken his own anguish and imaginatively metamorphosed it into art.” ―Curt Leviant, Saturday Review
“To the best of my knowledge no one . . . has left behind him so moving a record.” ―Alfred Kazin, The Reporter
“What makes this book so chilling is not the pretense of what happened but a very real description of every thought, fear and the apathetic attitude demonstrated as a response . . . Night, Wiesel's autobiographical masterpiece, is a heartbreaking memoir. Wiesel has taken his painful memories and channeled them into an amazing document which chronicles his most intense emotions every step along the way.” ―Jose Del Real, Anchorage Daily News
“As a human document, Night is almost unbearably painful, and certainly beyond criticism.” ―A. Alvarez, Commentary
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
THEY CALLED HIM Moishe the Beadle, as if his entire life he had never had a surname. He was the jack-of-all-trades in a Hasidic house of prayer, ashtibl. The Jews of Sighet--the little town in Transylvania where I spent my childhood--were fond of him. He was poor and lived in utter penury. As a rule, our townspeople, while they did help the needy, did not particularly like them. Moishe the Beadle was the exception. He stayed out of people's way. His presence bothered no one. He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible.Physically, he was as awkward as a clown. His waiflike shyness made people smile. As for me, I liked his wide, dreamy eyes, gazing off into the distance. He spoke little. He sang, or rather he chanted, and the few snatches I caught here and there spoke of divine suffering, of the Shekhinah in Exile, where, according to Kabbalah, it awaits its redemption linked to that of man.I met him in 1941. I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple.One day I asked my father to find me a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah."You are too young for that. Maimonides tells us that one must be thirty before venturing into the world of mysticism, a world fraught with peril. First you must study the basic subjects, those you are able to comprehend."My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin. The Jewish community of Sighet held him in highest esteem; his advice on public and even private matters was frequently sought. There were four of us children. Hilda, the eldest; then Bea; I was the third and the only son; Tzipora was the youngest.My parents ran a store. Hilda and Bea helped with the work. As for me, my place was in the house of study, or so they said."There are no Kabbalists in Sighet," my father would often tell me.He wanted to drive the idea of studying Kabbalah from my mind. In vain. I succeeded on my own in finding a master for myself in the person of Moishe the Beadle.He had watched me one day as I prayed at dusk."Why do you cry when you pray?" he asked, as though he knew me well."I don't know," I answered, troubled.I had never asked myself that question. I cried because ... because something inside me felt the need to cry. That was all I knew."Why do you pray?" he asked after a moment.Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?"I don't know," I told him, even more troubled and ill at ease. "I don't know."From that day on, I saw him often. He explained to me, withgreat emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer ...Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him, he liked to say. Therein lies true dialogue. Man asks and God replies. But we don't understand His replies. We cannot understand them. Because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die. The real answers, Eliezer, you will find only within yourself."And why do you pray, Moishe?" I asked him."I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions."We spoke that way almost every evening, remaining in the synagogue long after all the faithful had gone, sitting in the semidarkness where only a few half-burnt candles provided a flickering light.One evening, I told him how unhappy I was not to be able to find in Sighet a master to teach me the Zohar, the Kabbalistic works, the secrets of Jewish mysticism. He smiled indulgently. After a long silence, he said, "There are a thousand and one gates allowing entry into the orchard of mystical truth. Every human being has his own gate. He must not err and wish to enter the orchard through a gate other than his own. That would present a danger not only for the one entering but also for those who are already inside."And Moishe the Beadle, the poorest of the poor of Sighet, spoke to me for hours on end about the Kabbalah's revelations and its mysteries. Thus began my initiation. Together we would read, over and over again, the same page of the Zohar. Not to learn it by heart but to discover within the very essence of divinity.And in the course of those evenings I became convinced that Moishe the Beadle would help me enter eternity, into that time when question and answer would become ONE.
AND THEN, one day all foreign Jews were expelled from Sighet. And Moishe the Beadle was a foreigner.Crammed into cattle cars by the Hungarian police, they cried silently. Standing on the station platform, we too were crying. The train disappeared over the horizon; all that was left was thick, dirty smoke.Behind me, someone said, sighing, "What do you expect? That's war ..."The deportees were quickly forgotten. A few days after they left, it was rumored that they were in Galicia, working, and even that they were content with their fate.Days went by. Then weeks and months. Life was normal again. A calm, reassuring wind blew through our homes. The shopkeepers were doing good business, the students lived among their books, and the children played in the streets.One day, as I was about to enter the synagogue, I saw Moishe the Beadle sitting on a bench near the entrance.He told me what had happened to him and his companions. The train with the deportees had crossed the Hungarian border and, once in Polish territory, had been taken over by the Gestapo. The train had stopped. The Jews were ordered to get off and onto waiting trucks. The trucks headed toward a forest. There everybody was ordered to get out. They were forced to dig huge trenches. When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns. This took place in the Galician forest, near Kolo-may. How had he, Moishe the Beadle, been able to escape? By a miracle. He was wounded in the leg and left for dead ...Day after day, night after night, he went from one Jewish house to the next, telling his story and that of Malka, the young girl who lay dying for three days, and that of Tobie, the tailor who begged to die before his sons were killed.Moishe was not the same. The joy in his eyes was gone. He no longer sang. He no longer mentioned either God or Kabbalah. He spoke only of what he had seen. But people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen. Some even insinuated that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things. Others flatly said that he had gone mad.As for Moishe, he wept and pleaded:"Jews, listen to me! That's all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!" he kept shouting in synagogue, between the prayer at dusk and the evening prayer.Even I did not believe him. I often sat with him, after services, and listened to his tales, trying to understand his grief. But all I felt was pity."They think I'm mad," he whispered, and tears, like drops of wax, flowed from his eyes.Once, I asked him the question: "Why do you want people to believe you so much? In your place I would not care whether they believed me or not ..."He closed his eyes, as if to escape time."You don't understand," he said in despair. "You cannot understand. I was saved miraculously. I succeeded in coming back. Where did I get my strength? I wanted to return to Sighet to describe to you my death so that you might ready yourselves while there is still time. Life? I no longer care to live. I am alone. But I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me ..."This was toward the end of 1942.Thereafter, life seemed normal once again. London radio, which we listened to every evening, announced encouragingnews: the daily bombings of Germany and Stalingrad, the preparation of the Second Front. And so we, the Jews of Sighet, waited for better days that surely were soon to come.I continued to devote myself to my studies, Talmud during the day and Kabbalah at night. My father took care of his business and the community. My grandfather came to spend Rosh Hashanah with us so as to attend the services of the celebrated Rebbe of Borsche. My mother was beginning to think it was high time to find an appropriate match for Hilda.Thus passed the year 1943.
SPRING 1944. Splendid news from the Russian Front. There could no longer be any doubt: Germany would be defeated. It was only a matter of time, months or weeks, perhaps.The trees were in bloom. It was a year like so many others, with its spring, its engagements, its weddings, and its births.The people were saying,"The Red Army is advancing with giant strides ... Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to ..."Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us.Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century!And thus my elders concerned themselves with all manner of things--strategy, diplomacy, politics, and Zionism--but not with their own fate.Even Moishe the Beadle had fallen silent. He was weary of talking. He would drift through synagogue or through the streets, hunched over, eyes cast down, avoiding people's gaze.In those days it was still possible to buy emigration certificatesto Palestine. I had asked my father to sell everything, to liquidate everything, and to leave."I am too old, my son," he answered. "Too old to start a new life. Too old to start from scratch in some distant land ..."Budapest radio announced that the Fascist party had seized power. The regent Miklós Horthy was forced to ask a leader of the pro-NaziNyilas party to form a new government.Yet we still were not worried. Of course we had heard of the Fascists, but it was all in the abstract. It meant nothing more to us than a change of ministry.The next day brought really disquieting news: German troops had penetrated Hungarian territory with the government's approval.Finally, people began to worry in earnest. One of my friends, Moishe Chaim Berkowitz, returned from the capital for Passover and told us, "The Jews of Budapest live in an atmosphere of fear and terror. Anti-Semitic acts take place every day, in the streets, on the trains. The Fascists attack Jewish stores, synagogues. The situation is becoming very serious ..."The news spread through Sighet like wildfire. Soon that was all people talked about. But not for long. Optimism soon revived: The Germans will not come this far. They will stay in Budapest. For strategic reasons, for political reasons ...In less than three days, German Army vehicles made their appearance on our streets.
ANGUISH. German soldiers--with their steel helmets and their death's-head emblem. Still, our first impressions of the Germans were rather reassuring. The officers were billeted in private homes, even in Jewish homes. Their attitude toward their hosts was distant but polite. They never demanded the impossible,made no offensive remarks, and sometimes even smiled at the lady of the house. A German officer lodged in the Kahns' house across the street from us. We were told he was a charming man, calm, likable, and polite. Three days after he moved in, he brought Mrs. Kahn a box of chocolates. The optimists were jubilant: "Well? What did we tell you? You wouldn't believe us. There they are,your Germans. What do you say now? Where is their famous cruelty?"The Germans were already in our town, the Fascists were already in power, the verdict was already out--and the Jews of Sighet were still smiling.
THE EIGHT DAYS of Passover.The weather was sublime. My mother was busy in the kitchen. The synagogues were no longer open. People gathered in private homes: no need to provoke the Germans.Almost every rabbi's home became a house of prayer.We drank, we ate, we sang. The Bible commands us to rejoice during the eight days of celebration, but our hearts were not in it. We wished the holiday would end so as not to have to pretend.On the seventh day of Passover, the curtain finally rose: the Germans arrested the leaders of the Jewish community.From that moment on, everything happened very quickly. The race toward death had begun.First edict: Jews were prohibited from leaving their residences for three days, under penalty of death.Moishe the Beadle came running to our house."I warned you," he shouted. And left without waiting for a response.The same day, the Hungarian police burst into every Jewish home in town: a Jew was henceforth forbidden to own gold, jewelry,or any valuables. Everything had to be handed over to the authorities, under penalty of death. My father went down to the cellar and buried our savings.As for my mother, she went on tending to the many chores in the house. Sometimes she would stop and gaze at us in silence.Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yellow star.Some prominent members of the community came to consult with my father, who had connections at the upper levels of the Hungarian police; they wanted to know what he thought of the situation. My father's view was that it was not all bleak, or perhaps he just did not want to discourage the others, to throw salt on their wounds:"The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal ..."(Poor Father! Of what then did you die?)But new edicts were already being issued. We no longer had the right to frequent restaurants or cafés, to travel by rail, to attend synagogue, to be on the streets after six o'clock in the evening.Then came the ghettos.
TWO GHETTOS were created in Sighet. A large one in the center of town occupied four streets, and another smaller one extended over several alleyways on the outskirts of town. The street we lived on, Serpent Street, was in the first ghetto. We therefore could remain in our house. But, as it occupied a corner, the windows facing the street outside the ghetto had to be sealed. We gave some of our rooms to relatives who had been driven out of their homes.Little by little life returned to "normal." The barbed wire that encircled us like a wall did not fill us with real fear. In fact, we felt this was not a bad thing; we were entirely among ourselves. Asmall Jewish republic ... A Jewish Council was appointed, as well as a Jewish police force, a welfare agency, a labor committee, a health agency--a whole governmental apparatus.People thought this was a good thing. We would no longer have to look at all those hostile faces, endure those hate-filled stares. No more fear. No more anguish. We would live among Jews, among brothers ...Of course, there still were unpleasant moments. Every day, the Germans came looking for men to load coal into the military trains. Volunteers for this kind of work were few. But apart from that, the atmosphere was oddly peaceful and reassuring.Most people thought that we would remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Afterward everything would be as before. The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion.
SOME TWO WEEKS before Shavuot. A sunny spring day, people strolled seemingly carefree through the crowded streets. They exchanged cheerful greetings. Children played games, rolling hazelnuts on the sidewalks. Some schoolmates and I were in Ezra Malik's garden studying a Talmudic treatise.Night fell. Some twenty people had gathered in our courtyard. My father was sharing some anecdotes and holding forth on his opinion of the situation. He was a good storyteller.Suddenly, the gate opened, and Stern, a former shopkeeper who now was a policeman, entered and took my father aside. Despite the growing darkness, I could see my father turn pale."What's wrong?" we asked."I don't know. I have been summoned to a special meeting of the Council. Something must have happened."The story he had interrupted would remain unfinished."I'm going right now," he said. "I'll return as soon as possible. I'll tell you everything. Wait for me."We were ready to wait as long as necessary. The courtyard turned into something like an antechamber to an operating room. We stood, waiting for the door to open. Neighbors, hearing the rumors, had joined us. We stared at our watches. Time had slowed down. What was the meaning of such a long session?"I have a bad feeling," said my mother. "This afternoon I saw new faces in the ghetto. Two German officers, I believe they were Gestapo. Since we've been here, we have not seen a single officer ..."It was close to midnight. Nobody felt like going to sleep, though some people briefly went to check on their homes. Others left but asked to be called as soon as my father returned.At last, the door opened and he appeared. His face was drained of color. He was quickly surrounded."Tell us. Tell us what's happening! Say something ..."At that moment, we were so anxious to hear something encouraging, a few words telling us that there was nothing to worry about, that the meeting had been routine, just a review of welfare and health problems ... But one glance at my father's face left no doubt."The news is terrible," he said at last. And then one word: "Transports."The ghetto was to be liquidated entirely. Departures were to take place street by street, starting the next day.We wanted to know everything, every detail. We were stunned, yet we wanted to fully absorb the bitter news."Where will they take us?"That was a secret. A secret for all, except one: the president of the Jewish Council. But he would not tell, orcould not tell. The Gestapo had threatened to shoot him if he talked."There are rumors," my father said, his voice breaking, "that we are being taken somewhere in Hungary to work in the brick factories. It seems that here, we are too close to the front ..."After a moment's silence, he added:"Each of us will be allowed to bring his personal belongings. A backpack, some food, a few items of clothing. Nothing else."Again, heavy silence."Go and wake the neighbors," said my father. "They must get ready ..."The shadows around me roused themselves as if from a deep sleep and left silently in every direction.
FOR A MOMENT, we remained alone. Suddenly Batia Reich, a relative who lived with us, entered the room: "Someone is knocking at the sealed window, the one that faces outside!"It was only after the war that I found out who had knocked that night. It was an inspector of the Hungarian police, a friend of my father's. Before we entered the ghetto, he had told us, "Don't worry. I'll warn you if there is danger." Had he been able to speak to us that night, we might still have been able to flee ... But by the time we succeeded in opening the window, it was too late. There was nobody outside.
THE GHETTO was awake. One after the other, the lights were going on behind the windows.I went into the house of one of my father's friends. I woke the head of the household, a man with a gray beard and the gaze of a dreamer. His back was hunched over from untold nights spent studying."Get up, sir, get up! You must ready yourself for the journey. Tomorrow you will be expelled, you and your family, you and all the other Jews. Where to? Please don't ask me, sir, don't ask questions. God alone could answer you. For heaven's sake, get up ..."He had no idea what I was talking about. He probably thought I had lost my mind."What are you saying? Get ready for the journey? What journey? Why? What is happening? Have you gone mad?"Half asleep, he was staring at me, his eyes filled with terror, as though he expected me to burst out laughing and tell him to go back to bed. To sleep. To dream. That nothing had happened. It was all in jest ...My throat was dry and the words were choking me, paralyzing my lips. There was nothing else to say.At last he understood. He got out of bed and began to dress, automatically. Then he went over to the bed where his wife lay sleeping and with infinite tenderness touched her forehead. She opened her eyes and it seemed to me that a smile crossed her lips. Then he went to wake his two children. They woke with a start, torn from their dreams. I fled.Time went by quickly. It was already four o'clock in the morning. My father was running right and left, exhausted, consoling friends, checking with the Jewish Council just in case the order had been rescinded. To the last moment, people clung to hope.The women were boiling eggs, roasting meat, preparing cakes, sewing backpacks. The children were wandering about aimlessly, not knowing what to do with themselves to stay out of the way of the grown-ups.Our backyard looked like a marketplace. Valuable objects, precious rugs, silver candlesticks, Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty grounds--pitiful relics that seemed never to have had a home. All this under a magnificent blue sky.By eight o'clock in the morning, weariness had settled into our veins, our limbs, our brains, like molten lead. I was in the midst of prayer when suddenly there was shouting in the streets. I quickly unwound my phylacteries and ran to the window. Hungarian police had entered the ghetto and were yelling in the street nearby."All Jews, outside! Hurry!"They were followed by Jewish police, who, their voices breaking, told us:"The time has come ... you must leave all this ..."The Hungarian police used their rifle butts, their clubs to indiscriminately strike old men and women, children and cripples.One by one, the houses emptied and the streets filled with people carrying bundles. By ten o'clock, everyone was outside. The police were taking roll calls, once, twice, twenty times. The heat was oppressive. Sweat streamed from people's faces and bodies.Children were crying for water.Water! There was water close by inside the houses, the backyards, but it was forbidden to break rank."Water, Mother, I am thirsty!"Some of the Jewish police surreptitiously went to fill a few jugs. My sisters and I were still allowed to move about, as we were destined for the last convoy, and so we helped as best we could.
AT LAST, at one o'clock in the afternoon came the signal to leave.There was joy, yes, joy. People must have thought there could be no greater torment in God's hell than that of being stranded here, on the sidewalk, among the bundles, in the middle of the street under a blazing sun. Anything seemed preferable to that. They began to walk without another glance at the abandoned streets, the dead, empty houses, the gardens, the tombstones ...On everyone's back, there was a sack. In everyone's eyes, tears and distress. Slowly, heavily, the procession advanced toward the gate of the ghetto.And there I was, on the sidewalk, watching them file past, unable to move. Here came the Chief Rabbi, hunched over, his face strange looking without a beard, a bundle on his back. His very presence in the procession was enough to make the scene seem surreal. It was like a page torn from a book, a historical novel, perhaps, dealing with the captivity in Babylon or the Spanish Inquisition.They passed me by, one after the other, my teachers, my friends, the others, some of whom I had once feared, some of whom I had found ridiculous, all those whose lives I had shared for years. There they went, defeated, their bundles, their lives in tow, having left behind their homes, their childhood.They passed me by, like beaten dogs, with never a glance in my direction. They must have envied me.The procession disappeared around the corner. A few steps more and they were beyond the ghetto walls.The street resembled fairgrounds deserted in haste. There was a little of everything: suitcases, briefcases, bags, knives, dishes, banknotes, papers, faded portraits. All the things one planned to take along and finally left behind. They had ceased to matter.Open rooms everywhere. Gaping doors and windows looked out into the void. It all belonged to everyone since it no longer belonged to anyone. It was there for the taking. An open tomb.A summer sun.
WE HAD SPENT the day without food. But we were not really hungry. We were exhausted.My father had accompanied the deportees as far as the ghetto's gate. They first had been herded through the main synagogue, where they were thoroughly searched to make sure they were not carrying away gold, silver, or any other valuables. There had been incidents of hysteria and harsh blows."When will it be our turn?" I asked my father."The day after tomorrow. Unless ... things work out. A miracle, perhaps ..."Where were the people being taken? Did anyone know yet? No, the secret was well kept.Night had fallen. That evening, we went to bed early. My father said:"Sleep peacefully, children. Nothing will happen until the day after tomorrow, Tuesday."Monday went by like a small summer cloud, like a dream in the first hours of dawn.Intent on preparing our backpacks, on baking breads and cakes, we no longer thought about anything. The verdict had been delivered.That evening, our mother made us go to bed early. To conserve our strength, she said.It was to be the last night spent in our house.I was up at dawn. I wanted to have time to pray before leaving.My father had risen before all of us, to seek information in town. He returned around eight o'clock. Good news: we were not leaving town today; we were only moving to the small ghetto. That is where we were to wait for the last transport. We would be the last to leave.At nine o'clock, the previous Sunday's scenes were repeated. Policemen wielding clubs were shouting:"All Jews outside!"We were ready. I went out first. I did not want to look at my parents' faces. I did not want to break into tears. We remained sitting in the middle of the street, like the others two days earlier. The same hellish sun. The same thirst. Only there was no one left to bring us water.I looked at my house in which I had spent years seeking my God, fasting to hasten the coming of the Messiah, imagining what my life would be like later. Yet I felt little sadness. My mind was empty."Get up! Roll call!"We stood. We were counted. We sat down. We got up again. Over and over. We waited impatiently to be taken away. What were they waiting for? Finally, the order came:"Forward! March!"My father was crying. It was the first time I saw him cry. I had never thought it possible. As for my mother, she was walking, her face a mask, without a word, deep in thought. I looked at my little sister, Tzipora, her blond hair neatly combed, her red coat over her arm: a little girl of seven. On her back a bag too heavy for her. She was clenching her teeth; she already knew it was useless to complain. Here and there, the police were lashing out with their clubs: "Faster!" I had no strength left. The journey had just begun and I already felt so weak ..."Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!" the Hungarian police were screaming.That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death.They ordered us to run. We began to run. Who would have thought that we were so strong? From behind their windows, from behind their shutters, our fellow citizens watched as we passed.We finally arrived at our destination. Throwing down our bundles, we dropped to the ground:"Oh God, Master of the Universe, in your infinite compassion, have mercy on us ..."
THE SMALL GHETTO. Only three days ago, people were living here. People who owned the things we were using now. They had been expelled. And we had already forgotten all about them.The chaos was even greater here than in the large ghetto. Its inhabitants evidently had been caught by surprise. I visited the rooms that had been occupied by my Uncle Mendel's family. On the table, a half-finished bowl of soup. A platter of dough waiting to be baked. Everywhere on the floor there were books. Had my uncle meant to take them along?We settled in. (What a word!) I went looking for wood, my sisters lit a fire. Despite her fatigue, my mother began to prepare a meal.We cannot give up, we cannot give up, she kept repeating.People's morale was not so bad: we were beginning to get used to the situation. There were those who even voiced optimism. The Germans were running out of time to expel us, they argued ... Tragically for those who had already been deported, it would be too late. As for us, chances were that we would be allowed to go on with our miserable little lives until the end of the war.The ghetto was not guarded. One could enter and leave as one pleased. Maria, our former maid, came to see us. Sobbing, she begged us to come with her to her village where she had prepared a safe shelter.My father wouldn't hear of it. He told me and my big sisters,"If you wish, go there. I shall stay here with your mother and the little one ..."Naturally, we refused to be separated.
NIGHT. No one was praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us. Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes.There was nothing else to do but to go to bed, in the beds of those who had moved on. We needed to rest, to gather our strength.At daybreak, the gloom had lifted. The mood was more confident. There were those who said:"Who knows, they may be sending us away for our own good. The front is getting closer, we shall soon hear the guns. And then surely the civilian population will be evacuated ...""They worry lest we join the partisans ...""As far as I'm concerned, this whole business of deportation is nothing but a big farce. Don't laugh. They just want to steal our valuables and jewelry. They know that it has all been buried and that they will have to dig to find it; so much easier to do when the owners are on vacation ..."On vacation!This kind of talk that nobody believed helped pass the time. The few days we spent here went by pleasantly enough, in relative calm. People rather got along. There no longer was any distinction between rich and poor, notables and the others; we were all people condemned to the same fate--still unknown.
SATURDAY, the day of rest, was the day chosen for our expulsion.The night before, we had sat down to the traditional Friday night meal. We had said the customary blessings over the breadand the wine and swallowed the food in silence. We sensed that we were gathered around the familial table for the last time. I spent that night going over memories and ideas and was unable to fall asleep.At dawn, we were in the street, ready to leave. This time, there were no Hungarian police. It had been agreed that the Jewish Council would handle everything by itself.Our convoy headed toward the main synagogue. The town seemed deserted. But behind the shutters, our friends of yesterday were probably waiting for the moment when they could loot our homes.The synagogue resembled a large railroad station: baggage and tears. The altar was shattered, the wall coverings shredded, the walls themselves bare. There were so many of us, we could hardly breathe. The twenty-four hours we spent there were horrendous. The men were downstairs, the women upstairs. It was Saturday--the Sabbath--and it was as though we were there to attend services. Forbidden to go outside, people relieved themselves in a corner.The next morning, we walked toward the station, where a convoy of cattle cars was waiting. The Hungarian police made us climb into the cars, eighty persons in each one. They handed us some bread, a few pails of water. They checked the bars on the windows to make sure they would not come loose. The cars were sealed. One person was placed in charge of every car: if someone managed to escape, that person would be shot.Two Gestapo officers strolled down the length of the platform. They were all smiles; all things considered, it had gone very smoothly.A prolonged whistle pierced the air. The wheels began to grind. We were on our way.Copyright © 1972, 1985 by Elie Wiesel
Product details
- Publisher : Hill and Wang; Second Edition, Revised (September 10, 2013)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 144 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0374534756
- ISBN-13 : 978-0374534752
- Lexile measure : 590L
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 4.15 x 0.3 x 6.7 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #124,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #199 in Jewish Holocaust History
- #438 in Author Biographies
- #4,016 in Memoirs (Books)
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About the author
ELIE WIESEL was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The author of more than fifty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, he was Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University for forty years. Wiesel died in 2016.
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Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir, Night (New York, Hill and Wang, 2006, translated by Marion Wiesel), is one of the best-known and most highly acclaimed work about the Holocaust. The New York Times called the 2006 edition “a slim volume of terrifying power,” yet its power wasn’t immediately appreciated. In fact, the book may have never been written had Wiesel not approached his friend, the novelist Francois Mauriac, for an introduction to the French Prime Minister Pierre Mendes-France, whom he wanted to interview. When Mauriac, a devoted Catholic, mentioned that Mendes-France was suffering like Jesus, Elie Wiesel responded, in the heat of the moment, that ten years earlier he had seen hundreds of Jewish children suffer more than Jesus did on the cross, yet nobody spoke about their suffering. Mauriac appeared moved and suggested that Wiesel himself write about it. The young man took his friend’s advice. He began writing in Yiddish an 862-page manuscript about his experiences of the Holocaust. The Central Union of Polish Jews in Argentina published in Yiddish an abbreviated version of this book, under the title And the World Remained Silent. Wiesel later translated the text into French. He called it, more simply and symbolically, Night (La Nuit), and sent it to Mauriac, who helped Wiesel find a publisher (the literary and small publishing house Les Editions de Minuit) and wrote its Preface. The English version, published in 1960 by Arthur Wang of Hill and Wang, received strong critical acclaim despite initially modest sales. Elie Wiesel’s eloquent and informed interviews helped bring the difficult subject of the Holocaust to the center of public attention. By 2006, Oprah Winfrey selected Night for her high-profile book club, further augmenting its exposure.
This work is definitely autobiographical—an eloquent memoir documenting Wiesel’s family sufferings during the Holocaust—yet, due to its literary qualities, the text has been also read as a novel or fictionalized autobiography. The brevity, poignant dialogue, almost lyrical descriptions of human degradation and suffering, and historical accuracy of this multifaceted work render Night one of the most powerful Holocaust narratives ever written.
Elie (Eliezer) Wiesel was only 15 years old when the Nazis entered Sighet in March of 1944, a small Romanian town in Northern Transylvania which had been annexed to Hungary in 1940. At the directives of Adolf Eichmann, who took it upon himself to “cleanse” Hungary of its Jews, the situation deteriorated very quickly for the Jewish population of Sighet and other provincial towns. Within a few months, between May and July 1944, approximately 440,000 Hungarian Jews, mostly those living outside of Budapest, were deported to Auschwitz aboard 147 trains.
Wiesel’s entire family—his father Chlomo, his mother Sarah, and his sisters Tzipora, Hilda and Beatrice—suffered this fate. Among them, only Elie and two of his sisters, Hilda and Beatrice, managed to survive the Holocaust. However, since the women and the men were separated at Auschwitz upon arrival, Elie lost track of what happened to his sisters until they reunited after the war. In the concentration camps, father and son clung to each other. Night recounts their horrific experiences, which included starvation, forced labor, and a death march to Buchenwald. Being older and weaker, Chlomo becomes the target of punishment and humiliation: he’s beaten by SS officers and by other prisoners who want to steal his food. Weakened by starvation and fatigue, he dies after a savage beating in January 1945, sadly, only a few weeks before the Americans liberated the concentration camp. Throughout their tribulations, the son oscillates between a paternal sense of responsibility towards his increasingly debilitated father and regarding his father as a burden that might cost him his own life. Elie doesn’t dare intervene when the SS officer beats Chlomo, fearing that he himself will become the next victim if he tries to help his father. In the darkness and despair of Night, the instinct of self-preservation from moment to moment counteracts a lifetime of familial love. Even when Elie discovers the death of his father in the morning, he experiences through a sense of absence: not only his father’s absence, as his bunk is now occupied by another inmate, but also the lack of his own human response: “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...” (112)
Night is offers a stark psychological account the process of human and moral degradation in inhumane conditions. Even the relatively few and fortunate survivors of the Nazi atrocities, such as Elie, became doubly victimized: the victims of everything they suffered at the hands of their oppressors and the victims of everything they witnessed others suffer and were unable or, perhaps more sadly, unwilling to help. Although Night focuses on the loss of humanity in the Nazi concentration camps, the author’s life would become a quest for regaining it again, in far better conditions, if at least one condition is met: caring about the suffering of others. As Wiesel explains to his audience on December 10, 1986 during his acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize in Oslo, his message to his son--and his message to the world at large—is about the empathy required to keep the Holocaust memory alive. He reminds us all, “that I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices. … We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” (118).
Claudia Moscovici, Holocaust Memory
But most of us have no frame of reference. Nothing in our experience even remotely compares.
This "I can't believe it" mentality was also common among non-Jewish civilians who lived in Germany during the Third Reich--when Adolf Hitler was in power (1933-1945).
Even as "night" descended on Wiesel's little town--Sighet, Transylvania (Hungary)--the Jewish people could not believe what was happening. Moishe the Beadle was "deported" by the Hungarian police, crammed into a cattle car and taken to a forest in Poland to be executed with other Jews. Incredibly, Moishe escaped and returned to Sighet with his story:
"The train had stopped. The Jews were ordered to get off and onto waiting trucks. The trucks headed toward a forest. There everybody was ordered to get out. They were forced to dig huge trenches. When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. . . ."
Moishe's escape was a miracle. He was wounded in the leg and left for dead. In Sighet, he went from house to house, telling his story, but the people refused to listen. Even the young Elie Wiesel did not believe him.
The denial continued. In Jewish families about to be transported to Auschwitz, "the women were boiling eggs, roasting meat, preparing cakes, sewing backpacks."
Wiesel does not challenge us to comprehend the gas chamber deaths of his mother and little sister Tzipora. Instead, he writes what we can grasp: "Tzipora was holding Mother's hand. I saw them walking farther and farther away; Mother was stroking my sister's blond hair as if to protect her. And I walked on with my father, with the men. I didn't know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever."
Wiesel describes with remarkable restraint a vicious beating he receives from a Kapo:
I felt the sweat running down my back.
"A-7713!"
I stepped forward.
"A crate!" he ordered.
They brought a crate.
"Lie down on it! On your belly!"
I obeyed.
I no longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip.
"One!. . . Two!. . ." he was counting.
He took his time between lashes. Only the first really hurt. I heard him count.
"Ten. . .eleven!. . ."
His voice was calm and reached me as through a thick wall.
"Twenty-three. . ."
Two more, I thought, half unconscious.
The Kapo was waiting.
"Twenty-four. . .twenty five!"
It was over. . . .
"Listen to me, you son of a swine!" said Idek coldly. "So much for your curiosity. You shall receive five times more if you dare tell anyone what you saw! Understood?"
I nodded, once, ten times, endlessly. As if my head had decided to say yes for all eternity.
Elie Wiesel's magnificent NIGHT bridges that enormous gulf between "I can't believe it" and the mind-numbing, horrific sinking in of the realization of "Oh, dear God, this really happened." His account is straightforward, almost matter-of-fact, with a minimum of frenzy, inordinate dwelling on flames of infernos, prolonged death throes, or metaphysical discourses about evil.
He does talk about his relationship with God throughout the ordeal. And of course about his father, who was with him in Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
Why did Wiesel write this book? He tells us:
"There are those who tell me that I survived in order to write this text. I am not convinced. I don't know how I survived; I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to save myself. A miracle? Certainly not. If heaven could or would perform a miracle for me, why not for others more deserving than myself? It was nothing more than chance. However, having survived, I needed to give some meaning to my survival. . . .
"In retrospect I must confess that I do not know, or no longer know, what I wanted to achieve with my words. I only know that without this testimony, my life as a writer--or my life, period--would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory. . . ."
I am grateful for this book and for Marion Wiesel's excellent and sensitive translation of her husband's memoir. Some great literature has come out of the Holocaust. In my opinion, Elie Wiesel's NIGHT is the best book, and certainly one of the most deeply moving among these works.
Arlene Sanders
Top reviews from other countries
Amazing. Absolutely amazing!
Reviewed in India on June 3, 2021
O livro é simplesmente fantástico. Estava muito ansioso para lê-lo e não me decepcionei. Elie Wiesel conta a sua história como sobrevivente do Holocausto ao mesmo tempo que emprega uma delicadeza na escrita. O tema abordado é obviamente pesado, mas muito importante. Fiquei horrorizado com os relatos de Wiesel e muitas vezes refletia sobre até que ponto os humanos são capazes de chegar. Em suma, é um livro recomendadíssimo para quem deseja ver uma visão mais pessoal a respeito dos horrores do Nazismo, além praticar inglês devido a uma linguagem simples e agradável.
Reviewed in Brazil on August 21, 2018
O livro é simplesmente fantástico. Estava muito ansioso para lê-lo e não me decepcionei. Elie Wiesel conta a sua história como sobrevivente do Holocausto ao mesmo tempo que emprega uma delicadeza na escrita. O tema abordado é obviamente pesado, mas muito importante. Fiquei horrorizado com os relatos de Wiesel e muitas vezes refletia sobre até que ponto os humanos são capazes de chegar. Em suma, é um livro recomendadíssimo para quem deseja ver uma visão mais pessoal a respeito dos horrores do Nazismo, além praticar inglês devido a uma linguagem simples e agradável.