The citation for Wiesel's Nobel Prize for Peace described him as a "messenger to humanity", something Wiesel rejects in favour of the term witness. Injustice and violence are universal human experiences. This is a powerful and important witness to the inhumanity we are capable of. In Night, Wiesel describes the loss of his passionate childhood faith and his encounter with an unforgettable darkness that took away forever his will to live. Yet he has become a man of immense eminence, deeply committed to the liberation of all oppressed groups.In his speech in acceptance of the Nobel Prize, Wiesel declares that indifference to oppression, injustice and suffering is the most insidious danger of all.
Elie Wiesel was a boy of fourteen when the Gestapo arrived in his Hungarian village of Sihget. In later interviews he describes his childhood as full of blessing and love even though they were a poor family. He describes his devotion to God in the opening section on Moche, the Beadle. Elie is moved to pray with tears without really understanding why. His grandfather was a Hasidic Jew and a key influence, as was the faith of his mother. The first indication of trouble was the expulsion of all foreign Jews, including Moshe. The "thick, dirty smoke" (p16) of the disappearing cattle train hints of the coming darkness. Wiesel begins his description of the passivity of his kinfolk by reference to the speed with which the deportees are forgotten. The reappearance of Moche, who had miraculously survived to issue a warning, should have evoked a period of rapid preparation and escape. The news of anti-Semitism in Budapest, and even the arrival of German troops in Sihget did not cause serious disturbance. As Passover arrived, Wiesel notes, "There were no longer any synagogues open". (20) Then came the rapid progression; theft of valuables, wearing the yellow star, segregation and the ghettos. Still hope persisted, expressed in the organization and continuity of life within the ghettos. Deportation! (p24) "To the very last moment, a germ of hope stayed alive in our hearts." (p26) "Night had fallen." (p29) Night! (p32)
The next section describes the horrors of the inhuman transportation system carrying people like animals to the camps. The `vision' of fire and furnace from Madame Schachter hovered over the wagon until the chimneys of Auschwitz came into view and the stench of burning bodies filled the air. "It must have been about midnight" (p39) Night had fallen.
"Men to the left! Women to the right!" (p40) Those eight words mark the sudden tearing loss of mother and sister, at the beginning of the third section. After this, under Mengele's baton, the first instance of surviving selection is documented. Father and son remaining together becomes a key theme through the rest of the book. Refusal to take part in the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, said by the living for themselves marks the first real death in Elie's faith. A key passage follows where three times Wiesel iterates "Never shall I forget that night, ...those flames ...that nocturnal silence. (p45) He speaks of an inhuman weariness, and of the student, the child, his former self, as having been consumed in the flames. (p48) Having been processed through Birkenau they arrive at Auschwitz, an improvement! Elie becomes A-7713.
Wiesel's next stay was at Buna. Here Elie speaks of the hunger and his reduction to being a body, "Perhaps less than that even." (p64) Here he shares a brief encounter of trust with a woman he later meets in France, his gold tooth is brutally extracted and he suffers a beating from the Kapo (overseer). The section concludes with a series of hangings. The final one of a young boy, hanged with two others, but because of his lightness taking a long time to die. The question was raised, "Where is God?" Wiesel's answer, "Where is He? Here He is - he is hanging here on this gallows..." (p77)
This section begins with the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, and a long discussion of faith. (p77-79) There follows Yom Kippur, and a further selection of the weak to be murdered and the strong to continue working. Here Elie spends some time in hospital and has an operation on his foot. When the camp is evacuated because of the advancing Russian Army this gives Wiesel and his father the opportunity to choose to stay in the hospital and accept death, or to join the evacuation. (p94)
Wiesel describes how they survived the extreme forced march together. In the interval of rest at the warehouse, Wiesel notes the abandonment of Rabbi Eliahou by his son. (p102) On arrival at Gleiwitz, he describes the dying concert of Juliek. (p107) The section ends with Wiesel and his father again avoiding separation.
A further horrendous train journey! The scene of a son causing the death of his father over the fight for a morsel of bread, and then being killed himself, echoes the abandonment of Rabbi Eliahou by his son, and underlines the commitment of Elie to his own father. (p113)
This penultimate section at Buchenwald is focused on the death of Elie Wiesel's father. After that he survived a further three months before liberation.
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