In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel documents his experiences during the Holocaust. He and his family are forced out of their home in Transylvania onto trains that take them to a concentration camp, where his family is split apart. He and his father work in the camp; they are sent to another camp after that, which leads Wiesel to freedom and his father to death.
Through Wiesel’s emotional narrative, he makes the horror of the holocaust seem new to the reader, even though his personal story is over sixty years old. It is the little stories that make this memoir so scary. He is a survivor, but he is also a witness, and this role is taken on with conviction. He vowed to never forget what happened to him and all of the others; this vow comes to fruition in the form of his story. He doesn’t want to see the holocaust as just a parade of statistics, numbers without a name. It is the personal accounts that make the holocaust seem real to those of us who weren’t alive then. This is why one voice makes a bigger impact than a bunch of numbers.
While I read about his horrific experiences, I found myself in a state of wonder. How he had managed to live in spite of what happened to him truly shocked me. He lived off nothing but the hope that him and his father would make it out alive. No food, no water, barely any shelter. How anyone can live off a few pieces of bread is beyond me. His will to live is really what pulled him through, and I have such admiration for him.
This memoir is hard to read because of the emotions held within the pages, but very important because of its worth. It reminds us all that we must take on the conviction of Wiesel: to never, ever forget.