Night is a work by Elie Wiesel based on his experience, as a young Orthodox Jew, of being sent with his family to the German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Second World War and the Holocaust. Having lost his faith in God and humanity, he vowed not to speak of his experience for ten years, at the end of which he wrote his story in Yiddish. It was published in Buenos Aires in 1955, and in May that year, the French novelist François Mauriac persuaded him to write it for a wider audience.
Night is the first book in a trilogy—Night, Dawn, and Day—reflecting Wiesel's state of mind during and after the Holocaust. The titles mark his transition from darkness to light, according to the Jewish tradition of beginning a new day at nightfall. "In Night," he said, "I wanted to show the end, the finality of the event. Everything came to an end—man, history, literature, religion, God. There was nothing left. And yet we begin again with night."
Themes
Emotional Death
Self-Preservation vs. Family Commitment
Dignity in the Face of Human Cruelty
Struggle to Maintain Faith
Web Resources
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Holocaust History Project
Holocaust Timeline
Jewish Virtual Library
