Night by Elie Wiesel

There are certain events in history that are talked about and covered in school lessons so often that we can sometimes overlook and lose sight of the human element that those events have in them. I would argue that the Holocaust is one of those events. Many people are given countless lessons on the Holocaust and have an understanding of the tragedies that people went through in that time, but do they truly understand on a deep emotional level the human feelings that people must have felt in that time? This is not to say that we forget about what those people have gone through and the challenges that they faced, but the emotional connection to certain historical events is sometimes drowned in the endless context. Elie Wiesel’s Night has given me an emotional punch to the gut and truly brought to light, the human emotions that someone in that situation might have felt. It reminded me of how the people in those historical events were real people, not just historical characters. It is sickening to think about these terrible events on an emotional level, but I believe Wiesel intended for his audience to feel that way and that is the beauty of his book. It allows its reader to dive deep into the emotional turmoil that Jews had to face at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie Wiesel takes us through his story from his unfortunate capture and transport to the concentration camps, to life inside the camp where any day could be his last, to his eventual escape which seemed too late considering he had already lost everything. This story is astounding and essential for readers to have a deeper emotional understanding of what those people had to go through and why something like the Holocaust can never happen again.