Night is written in the perspective of a young teenage boy, who’s only goal is to stay by his fathers’ side. And he is successful for so long it gives you hope that their life together might just have a happy ending. But the boys fight eventually fails and he loses is father when both have come so close to the true end.
The boy, Eliezer, believes that people were foolish and naïve and that that was the source of their troubles. He says “In the beginning there was faith – which is childish; trust – which is vain; and illusion – which is dangerous.” He believed in these things at the start and only now is he able to look back and realize how stupid those ideas were. Eliezer is interested in one word as the outcome of his situation – responsibility. He says it’s his job to “testify.” “For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. I do not want my past to become their future.”
The author uses his own experiences to tell his story. He writes of only his life. You feel how real it is as you read and the only thing that keeps you pushing forward is the fact that you know Eliezer will live; because he will eventually write the book in-front of you. He talks about how the things that so many went through change who you are on the inside – they change your morals. “I remember that night, most horrendous of my life: ‘Eliezer, my son, come here… Come, don’t leave me alone.’ I heard his voice, grasped the meaning of the words… yet I did not move. It was his last wish to have me next to him in his agony… yet I did not let him have his wish. I was afraid… That is why I remained deaf to his cries.”
Perhaps the most powerful line in the book left me thinking about an answer to his question: “My father’s view was that it was not all bleak… ‘The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal…’ (Poor father! Of what then did you die?)” The conclusion the author made was that you were killed for being Jewish, for the fact of the yellow star. And I cannot come to any different conclusion.
The book gives me new knowledge as to what a true experience was in 1945. If even just a terrifying glimpse that may not compare to other tales, it has left me numb for I hate the fact of knowing it was real and yet so grateful that people like Eliezer work hard to prevent history from repeating itself.