Night | Teen Ink

Night

January 9, 2017
By ldk13 BRONZE, Tualatin, Oregon
ldk13 BRONZE, Tualatin, Oregon
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Imagine you’re sleeping then in the middle of the night your parents wake you rushing saying we need to pack we need to get ready.  You wake up confused wondering where are we going? What is happening? Ask a few questions about what is going on and you get no response all you hear is we don't have time for that we just need to get ready.  This is what families went through when be woken by Elie Wiesel in Night.  After being ordered by his father to spread the news.  Just imagine your life is going well your kids are healthy, you have food and shelter, then all of a your being ordered by a teen to get back and wake up your family. Waiting to find out what is happening, is it a good thing or a bad thing?


Elie Wiesel battled for his life during the time. He didn’t know what was going to happen to his father, or what happened to his sisters, and his mother.  To hear is story it just makes you want to turn the page and keep reading to figure out what happens but also make you want to stop reading the book because of how depressing and traumatic this moment was. It was so depressing reading what the Nazis could have ever thought like that, and do those things to the Jews.  One example of how traumatic this time was when Elie Wiesel says, “ In a snowy field hundreds of naked orphans live without a tomb. We received no food ,we lived off of snow it replaced our bread” (117-118). While the Jews were eating the snow the SS would laugh at the image of the Jews eating the snow.  This scene creates an image of starvation and the Jews trying to survive just on snow, no food. Also while walking you see friends/family laying on the side dead. Night is a very important book today because it talks about old history and what happened to the Jews in the concentration camps. As But also it is talking about how the Nazi’s thought what they were doing was right.


A second example is when the Jews had to leave the concentration camp, the SS were yelling at them “Faster you filthy dogs!” (103) The SS were running as well but they had a weapon in one hand because whoever they thought was keeping up to the pace or stopped they would shoot. Them shooting the ones who couldn't keep up to the pace gave pleasure to the SS.


While reading Night I realized I was thinking a lot about the book and the context, but not saying much it was like I was frozen by the content.  An example of how I was frozen by the content was when Wiesel said “ One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me” (133).


The book Night pulls you in while reading, and also teaches you. You want to keep reading because it is a great book.  But also because of the events that take place it breaks your heart what happened at the concentration camps to the Jews. This book is a brilliant book, it teaches the readers about what happened so many years ago. It gives you sorrow for what the Jews went through and fright of the cruelty to the Jews.


The author's comments:

This inspired me to do this piece because the book inspired me, and I thought that others should know about this book.


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