Night

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Memoir, Warning of the Atrosity of Human Nature
Review: I am a ninth grade English teacher and I have recently completed the teaching of this novel to my students, who were enthraled with this book. Wiesel is a courageous man who overcame the bounds and chains that evil placed on him and his will to survive. I don't know how, but he survived mentally and physically. The students had the same passion concerning this book as I. They found it easy to read and understand-some students even finished it within the first few evenings that it was assigned. This is a phenomenal story, one that everyone should experience.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome to Hell's Sanctuary.
Review: NIGHT by Elie Wiesel has to be the most disturbing autobiography I have ever read. It was only 107 pages, yet with all of the brutality inflicted upon the Jewish community by the Nazis, it just seemed longer. The torture boggled my mind and left me dazed. Mr. Wiesel has my ultimate respect for being able to surive such a tramatic experience. Such conditions would have cracked many strong men, but he was blessed to be able to survive and share his story with the world. His is a spirit of strength and this is a story that will not be forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: Night is one of the best books I've ever read!!
Review: Night is a great book. It is an interesting (true) story, and the details make it easy to imagine. It is very moving and really upsetting at times, but I still couldn't put it down. I definately suggest that you read it.

Rating:
Summary: A Journey to Hell and Back
Review: When I recieved this book to read for English class I thought that I would be able to read it easily in one night. I was shocked to find out that I had to move inch by inch, line by line through this stark account to even attempt to comprehend the experiences of this young boy. In sparse, savage prose Elie Wiesel tears out your heart and you watch your idealism about the human race burn in the blood-stained atmosphere of the death camps. If you want to understand life and human nature, read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Sophomore Reading Book
Review: As a Sophomore at my high school, we had to read this intriguing story! I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Elie's experience during this time of hatered. He tells the story so openly and really puts you in the positon to re-think your feelings on the Holocaust situation. At least thats what happened to me. I never really understood what whent on in the concentration camps. I mean yes we all knew that many people were killed, but so brutally, no I never would have thought that a human being could treat another person like this! I would highly recommend this book to teens and older readers. Elie was put through many hardships and now you can have the chance to read about the heartache he under went!!

Rating:
Summary: Darkest Night
Review: In form like a novella that rises at points to the level of poetry, this book's content comes, however, straight from Hell. A good first book for someone learning about the Holocaust, and also good for scholars of the period to reread occasionally to be reminded of the fundamentals of their subject. Superb.

Rating:
Summary: Night, an inspiration
Review: As a student in high school, and to read of a teenager experiencing what Elie Wiesel endured is phenomemal. His relationship with his father and God was the key to his survival in the concentration camps. Before the Nazi Hungarians came to his town, he lived for God. In the concentration camps, he lost faith and lived for his dad. But through all of the trials and tribulation he lived to tell about it. Nothing any of us teenagers go through really compares to what Elie Wiesel went through. His will and determination made him a hero in many student's hearts.

Rating:
Summary: Behind the Barbed Wire
Review: It's hard to imagine something as awful as being a Jew during the holocaust. That's what this book is about. Night, by Elie Wiesel, was a moving story about Wiesel's personal experience of life in a concentration camp. Night had a very interesting plot. Something was always happening in the story, so there were no boring moments. It used such good details that it made you feel more connected to the story, like you were there. "At the place of assembly, surrounded by the electrified barbed wire, thousands of Jews gathered, their faces stricken." Wiesel paints a clear picture of what this scene looked like. The book also had good character development. Wiesel described himself well, without saying directly what he was like. "I continued to devote myself to my studies." Wiesel chose these words rather than just saying that he liked to study. That helped make a better idea of how he was. I think the most important thing about Night is it's meaning. The holocaust is a very sensitive topic but I think it's important for people to know about it and try to understand what these people had to go through. I think that this book shows it better than any other book that I have ever read. This book really made me think about how actual people had to go through this. Sometimes when I was reading, it would seem like fiction and I would all of a sudden realize that everything I was reading was true. Night showed how horrible it was for the millions of people that suffered through the holocaust. It was especially detailed because it was from someone that had been through it all. This made this book even more touching. Night was incredibly powerful to me.

Rating:
Summary: Empty
Review: Death, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the Holocaust. Night is a very descriptive autobiography about a fifteen-year-old boy and his father who are taken to a concentration camp in 1943, where they saw death and hatred produced from a single man who was convinced that wiping out a single race was the answer to the world's problems. In the book the author, Elie Weisel, creates a vivid description of the town that he grows up in. Describing sights, sounds, and develops the characters in the book gracefully. In describing himself Weisel gives a good description of his interests in Judaism and how he involves his religion in every day life. Here is a good description of how he describes his father and the town's outlook upon him: "My father was a cultured, rather unsentimental man. There was never any display of emotion, even at home. He was more concerned with others than his own family. The Jewish community in Sighet held him in the greatest esteem. They often used to consult him about public matters and private ones." Throughout the book he gives these types of descriptive explanations of important characters, places, and things. The Holocaust, easy to say, hard to consume. The topic of the book is a hard one and is at some parts vividly described. But because he was unaware of most of the horrors that went on behind the curtain he does not get into details. Many of the things that were done to the Jews the prisoners did not know about. The book is well paced and clearly explained. But because of their experiences and the pace at which they happened some things do move quickly. Vocabulary wise it's easy to read and you won't be reading over and over. The world's problems were thought to be fixed by wiping out a race. And forged by hatred concentration camps and human cattle cars were made and Elie Weisel and his family were taken to a place of pain and suffering, where men were not men but savages filled with hatred and anger.

Rating:
Summary: The Horrors of the Holocaust
Review: Elie Wiesel's Night is a recounting of the horrific effects of the Holocaust, not just on the Jewish community but on all mankind. The acts of atrocity committed in the death camps devastated people the world over and the suffering continues to this day.

One example of the heinous acts committed occurs at the end of the war, when Wiesel and the rest of the camp of Buna were being forced to transfer to Gleiwitz. The transfer was a long, arduous journey for all. The weather was bitterly cold and there was a heavy snowfall. The distance the prisoners were made to walk was much farther than most people would ever dream of walking today, yet these people, human beings who were already in a weakened condition, were often made to run, and, if one collapsed or was injured or simply could no longer bear the pain, he was shot or trampled without pity or a second thought.

One image of many that Wiesel will never forget is that of Rabbi Eliahou's son leaving the Rabbi for dead, pretending not to see how tired his father was growing and how far he was lagging behind the others. At that moment, Wiesel made the decision to never abandon his own father, even if staying with him meant certain death for them both.

So adept were the German forces at breaking the spirits of the Jews that even Wiesel's faith in God, above all other things, so strong at the outset of the book, grows weaker as time goes on. When his father is knocked to the floor for politely inquiring as to the location of the lavatories, Wiesel does not strike back; he knows the punishment would be too great.

The incident that had the most effect on the young Wiesel was the suffering prior to the death of a young boy. No one who could help cared to do so. Wiesel looked on, helpless and forlorn, questioning God about the reason for such atrocities. Then, as now, there appeared to be no reason, save for man's unbearable inhumanity to man. If the Jews ever saw even a ray of hope, they also saw that ray of hope destroyed. Fighting for everything they had, from their possessions to their dignity to their very lives, the result was always the same.

At the end of the war, Wiesel looked into a mirror and saw "a corpse." His body was, somehow, still alive, but he felt robbed of his very soul. It is feeling he shared with all Holocaust survivors, as well as with many Jews and non-Jews who felt, even indirectly, the effects of such naked brutality.

The world was forever changed by the atrocities of the Holocaust and no one recounts the atrocities of those days with more emotion than Wiesel. Night is a horrific book, but it is also a tribute to the unbreakable spirit of man.