Night by Elie Wiesel

In exploring the back story of Elie Wiesel's Night, I learned that Wiesel kept silent about his story for an entire decade. When he finally decided to break his silence, he was met by a stack of rejection letters from publishers, all stating that the book was too "morbid," and that "no one wanted to read about the concentration camps." Still, Elie pursued publishing the book, and he stated later that his purpose was to share the stories of others who could not speak. He did not want the other victims to be forgotten. He had a voice not only for himself, but for the 1.5 million other Jews killed in Auschwitz (6 billion total in all the camps). He chose not to let them be silenced. Surely the concept of silence plays a role in Night, especially in reference to God. At the beginning of our story, Elie is a curious and bright young Jewish boy, enthralled by religion, spirituality, and God. He studies and prays, craving to learn all he can about the mysterious God he prays to. Very quickly, Elie's nurtured and wholesome life is uprooted by evil, and for the rest of the memoir, as Elie experiences and bears witness to atrocity after atrocity after atrocity, Elie can no longer claim belief in this God he once sought to know. He repeatedly questions himself, the reader, God, or perhaps no one, exactly where his God was when he witnessed: a young boy struggling for life as he hung at the gallows for over a half hour; a talented young violinist playing his last Beethoven concerto before slumping over in death; and ultimately, his dying father speaking his last words to Elie, Elie's name, a request for water, and Elie rolls over to sleep. He feels that God is standing by, silent--along with Elie's faith is changed forever. Night is a story for humbling and awakening. For students in late middle school or early high school, this is a story that can bring to light the horrors that Anne Frank didn't live to tell in her famous diary, providing teachers with a tool to dig a bit deeper. The spiritual searching that Wiesel describes can encourage readers to explore these concepts through personal thought.