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.

Customer Reviews:
The Hobo Philosopher
Elie Wiesel was a victim of the attempted extermination of the "Jewish Race" by the Nazi German State under the leadership of Adolf Hitler.

Adolf Hitler actually had a bigger plan than the extinction of the "Jewish Race." His larger goal was to eventually rid the world of all inferior breeds and types of people - weather they were members of races or not. He was going to purify humankind of all of its miscreants. The Jews were simply first. He explains these goals in his book Mein Kampf.

It always amazes me that here in the United States there has only been one political party that has ever been outlawed - the Communist Party. As far as I know even today, you can be a member of the Nazi Party but not a member of a Communist Party.

In principle and theory the Nazi Party advocates the extermination of all inferior peoples for the eventual goal of the purification of the species.

The Communist Party in principle and theory (despite the leadership of many misguided brutes and dictators and murderers) has advocated fair treatment for the poor and working class.

In the United States we have outlawed the Communist Party but not the Nazi Party.

Harry Truman in one of his memoirs states that in his opinion Communism was a worse philosophy than Nazism.

To say the least I'm confused.

But "Night" by Elie Wiesel is not a book about Nazism or Communism. It is a book about people and the human race.

The copy of "Night" that I have was previously owned. And the original owner has written several of his comments or questions in the margins.

On page four he writes; Why would you allow yourself to be shipped off? On page seven he writes: Total denial of worsening conditions by the Jews. On page 27 he writes; So many Jews and so few SS. Why don't the Jews just take over? On page 37 he writes: A psychological feeling of depression controlled the Jews. He has other comments but they get fewer and fewer as the book goes on.

What do you think about these questions?

I wonder why this last reader is questioning the behavior of the Jews and not the behavior of the Germans.

There is not one question written in the margins of this little book asking how the German people could do such a thing to any group of people.

Like the battered housewife, everyone asks; Why did you stay with him? Why did you allow him to treat you so?

No one asks: What was wrong with this man?

Is it because we as human beings are so conditioned to abuse and torture and mistreatment in this life that we see nothing unusual about the abuser?

And this brings us to Mr. Elie Wiesel's constant refrain throughout this book; `Where is God? Where is He? Where can He be now?'

As a philosophical student of the classical problem of the existence or non-existence of God, I find this argument basic. This is the moral argument against the existence of God - How can a moral God create an immoral world?

Leibniz said that because God is good and moral - this is the best of all possible worlds. It must be. God can not make mistakes.

Voltaire wrote Candide as the disbelievers' response to Leibniz.

The believer will say that the evil of the Holocaust was not God's evil but the evil of man - it was created by the German people. This was human evil not Divine evil - as if human nature could somehow be separated from a Divine creation.

Once again we see the victim getting the blame while the abuser is exonerated.
This seems to be the human condition.

To continue with this philosophy of "beating up on the victim," I suppose that the non-believer could say to the believer: Why my friend do you chose to believe in an abusive God?

A Walk Towards Destruction
Some books, it seems, are almost beyond mere review. NIGHT is about Elie Wiesel's time in Nazi concentration camps. Really, what can one add? The description alone says an awful lot. So let us not focus on subject and instead focus on readability.

NIGHT is very readable. It is not, however, a scholarly study. Many other books provide much better detail and history of the Nazi camps designed either to exterminate undesirables outright or, alternatively, work them to death. NIGHT, rather than being scholarly, is personal. It does not bring the concentration camps to life. It brings Elie Wiesel to life as he lived it in those camps and, more ominously, the life he led before them.

That life before heading to the extermination camps is of equal importance to the life in the camps itself. A basic yet terrifying rule of totalitarian ideologies and the political movements that bring them to fruition is that they do not advertise the barbaric methods that will ultimately be employed in order to achieve their ideological goals. Concentration camps were such extreme institutions that, even given the generations of anti-semitism, they seemed beyond belief until it was much too late. Wiesel and his family (and others in his village) were indeed warned as to what was awaiting them. Yet the stories were so far out there, so incomprehensible, that they were scoffed at. That is perhaps the most important lesson of the book.

At a little over 100 pages, NIGHT is actually a bit skimpy in its descriptions. Yet it provides enough. It provides the big pictures - endless work, ravenous hunger, brutality of the guards and other prisoners and, most distressing, the slipping away of one's own humanity as survival becomes so precarious that one's concerns even for loved ones slips away in the face of self-preservation.

Part memorial, part warning, NIGHT was Wiesel's first book. It could have been his last and his reputation would still be significant. It is a dark but worthwhile read about a very dark time.

One of the Most Stunningly Powerful Works of All-Time
When a teenager, Elie Wiesel was taken from his home, and he and his family were put in a series of concentration camps over several years. Night is the haunting record of that experience, as bleakly unflinching a memoir as has ever been written. Few can know the horrors of not only spending teenage years in such a place but also seeing family members and many others die and countless others suffer. Needless to say, Wiesel's own plight was also tragically great, and he unsurprisingly lost both innocence and faith. The experience touched him so deeply that he was unable to write of it for over a decade. When he finally did, he had great difficulty getting published; the events were still very close, and the world wanted to forget rather than being reminded. However, when published in 1960, Night was an international sensation, reawakening interest in the Holocaust and all it stands for. It was not only a literary triumph but the first step in Wiesel's core belief that we must always remember the Holocaust so nothing like it ever happens again.

The book remains undeniably compelling, a masterpiece on many levels. Perhaps most immediately, it is a stark depiction of evil's height, showing humanity at its worst. This is valuable in every sense from philosophical to sociological but above all in destroying hollow optimism epitomized in the belief that things will take care of themselves and all will work out for the best. Night leaves no doubt that, left unchecked, human evil grows exponentially; it is our duty to curb it, and the awareness raised by such works is a very important part of this. Second, it is an invaluable historical document, one of the best - most thorough and readable - primary sources of the Holocaust's unparalleled miseries. As such, it is one of the darkest works ever - all the more so in being true; even the blackest imagination could not conceive such atrocities, which says all that need be said about this aspect of Night and the events it records.

Yet there are several strong senses in which the book is not bleak. First, it is an artistic masterpiece; unwavering honesty and vivid description raise it above mere memoir, putting it with the most harrowing and unforgettable first-person accounts ever. Its biggest strength in this way is unadorned yet highly effective prose. Wiesel has no time for dizzying metaphors, lush descriptions, or other fancy writing; he has a bitter story to tell and tells it as plainly and - in the best way - as simply as possible. This makes it clearer and more memorable than it could ever have been otherwise, forcing us to focus on the events rather than the writing. The story speaks for itself as few can. Though barely one hundred pages, it has more of substance and significance than nearly any other book. The words are few but the implications endless.

Perhaps more fundamentally, though Night is a savage condemnation of human evil, it is also a tribute to human endurance. Like a surprising number of others, Wiesel survived the Holocaust despite everything, showing just how far human beings can be pushed and live. Such determination and perseverance is truly incredible, a testament to the indomitable human spirit that is at least as astonishing in its way as the evil that confronted it and far more awe-inspiring. Wiesel not only lived but, in a long career starting with Night, has admirably devoted his life to exposing the Holocaust's monstrosities to guard future ages against recurring evil.

Night is a profoundly important document in this and many other ways, a must for anyone even remotely interested in the Holocaust, World War II, Judaism, or the depths to which humanity can sink - as well as, in one sense at least, all that it can rise above. It is nothing less than one of the most important and valuable books of all-time. Though a very painful read, everyone should read it if only to see just how painful life can be - and hopefully to avoid passing the pain on to those lucky enough to have been born after the nightmares it faithfully records.

great
Book was sent quickly and was in great condition. Would do bussiness with this business/person again.

Haunting and powerfully tragic ...
After reading "Night", I realized that it is the first book I've read that was authored by a Holocaust survivor. I was so absorbed by Elie Weisel's tale of absolute misery and despair that it only took me a little over an hour to read the entire book ... and I've found myself thinking about it's contents ever since. It is also the first book I've read that actually made me feel the authors pain.

The books starts with the feeling that Germany's defeat was imminent, Weisel conveys a sense of complacency in that it appeared he and his family would be spared the worse with the Red Army's rapid westward advance to Germany. Even when Germany invades Hungary in the spring of 1944, Weisel and his family appeared content to wait for the Russians. This proved to be a grave miscalculation as the Nazis begin deporting Jews from the ghetto to labor camps in Poland ... at this point, Weisel and his father are separated from his mother and younger sister. The remainder of the book is about survival based on ingenuity, fate and others' misfortunes. As he and his father trudge through the hell of Auschwitz; it isn't until later that Weisel begins to assume the fate of his sister and mother.

Throughout the book, death is both random and a frequent sight, with the lines of people plodding to the chimneys that endlessly spew the ashes of thousands upon thousands ... a constant reminder of his inevitible fate. Weisel frequently contemplates his faith in God, because there is no way, he believes, that God would allow such inhumanity on such a grand scale. When the thundering artillery of the approaching Red Army are actually being felt, the Nazis crudely force the inmates of Auschwitz on a death march to Germany that only the strong could possibly survive. At this point Weisel sees and feels how the bonds of family become unglued when starvation becomes extreme and how the endless dead are unceremoniously disposed. Buchenwald is the final destination of the death march and it is there where Weisel experiences his ultimate loss and eventual liberation by the Americans.

At 120 pages (including a transcript of the author's Nobel Prize speech), Weisel didn't need many words to bring forth the pain, suffering and loss he experienced and witnessed. I found myself constantly putting myself in Weisel's shoes, often wondering how he had the will, at sixteen years of age, to endure such horrific circumstances. I intended to be critical of this book in that it left me with so many questions, mainly follow-up questions, like Weisel's thoughts looking back. But, with the book still making me think several days after I read it, I accepted and appreciated "Night" for what it was ... a nightmare that became reality for a teenager ... a capsule of that particular moment in time, no more, no less.

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