Night time

Elie Wiesel’s immortal story haunts me

October 9, 2008

Articles, Nu Magazine - October 9, 2008

Of all that I have read in my life, I feel that no other work has affected me as much as the story of Night by Elie Wiesel.

Not only is it based on the author’s life, this book conveys the tragedy of the Holocaust on a personal level unlike any other work I know. From an overarching view, the events of World War II are nothing short of horrible: six million Jews, three million Soviets, and a million others dead. However, these numbers are too large and too drastic to really comprehend.

Works such as Night offer the experience of a single person who struggled in these circumstances and allow the reader to become attached to a person rather than a number. Wiesel’s telling of his tale is simple but devastating; it tells a foreign story but makes the reader relate to Eliezer, the main character, as if he or she were in his shoes. It left me breathless.

I connected to Night on three distinct levels. The first was as a human, or as Wiesel made me think, a body.

The events of the Holocaust were unthinkably cruel, horrid, and inhumane enough to swiftly strip the mind of all thoughts short of survival. Wiesel recounts his days of struggle in the Birkenau concentration camp through Eliezer. One of the most striking messages relayed the depravity of his starvation: “The bread, the soup — those were my entire life. I was nothing but a body. Perhaps even less: a famished stomach.”

As a person who has never felt such distress, it is hard to fully absorb what Wiesel has put to paper. However, the descriptions in Night break down Eliezer as the internment camps did, leaving him as merely a raw soul devoid of any real emotion that would not help him endure his struggle.

There are times when we all feel raw, alone, and lost. Through Eliezer, Wiesel shows us that endurance through such times, even in the direst circumstances, is essential for success, and ultimately, freedom.

The second level of connection is that of being a member of a family. Although separated from his mother and sister, Eliezer is accompanied by his father throughout his experience. They have an immensely strong bond and rely on each other to keep hope, and fight for their own lives from one day to the next.

While those around Eliezer find themselves stepping on each other and severing the only support they have, Eliezer and his father remain close and loving. On a starved and over-crowded train to Buchenwald, Eliezer witnesses a son beat his father to death over scraps of food.

Two other men join in and “when they withdrew, there were two dead bodies next to me, the father and the son.”

Throughout the story Eliezer continuously declares the love he has for his father, and the extent of their friendship. During a forced march from the camp at Gleiwitz, Eliezer contemplated succumbing to death and finally escaping his misery. His feet were aching, his limbs shivering to stay warm, and his mind tempted by the thought of simply giving up.

It was only his father that kept him going. “He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.”

This undying bond is what disallowed such intolerable and indescribable torture to overshadow the chance of one day being free.

In my life, family has remained a sound foundation and unparalleled support in my daily endeavors. My strongest and most prized relationships are those with my parents and sister. I go to them when I need advice and they come to me when they need a favor; we are interconnected and interdependent.

Just as Eliezer and his father remained a single, guarded unit, my family and I have found a level of closeness and security that leads us through life. This is one of the most powerful foundations one can have.

Lastly, I connected to Night as a Jew.

I am proud of my faith and consider it a strong part of my identity. It fills me with the deepest of woes and the strongest of rages to think that such unwarranted devastation could befall people so similar to myself less than 70 years ago.

I find the damage and death of the Holocaust to be almost incomprehensible in its magnitude. It makes it hard to trust the world we live in, knowing that such madness can occur. For one thing, it makes me unexplainably grateful for all that I have been blessed with today.

This story has helped me peer into the past at a devastating period of history. Wiesel illuminates the Holocaust and the internment of millions of Jews through the story of one young boy caught in the overwhelming struggle.

Through Eliezer, one can see the effects of the Nazi regime on those that were imprisoned and the life-draining depravity they were exposed to. It is a story that has changed my personal view of the Holocaust and summoned a deeper look into myself.

Max Bartick, 17, attends Columbia High School.