“Night” Reflection
By: David Trucksess
Period 3 World History Elie Wiesel once said, “For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.” Elie went through the holocaust himself being a jew experiencing first hand the brutality and atrocity of it. He experienced “Auschwitz”, the worst concentration camp in the war of World War II. It was also and extermination camp, estimated killings of over one-million people, specifically Jews. There were about 45 satellite camps around Auschwitz also, where the Jews were kept to die and work for the Nazi Third Reich. Many of the prisoners were exterminated by fire in the crematory fire which burned hundreds of thousands of bodies. Others died by gas chambers, disease, starvation, medical experiments, individual executions and overworked labor. Elie was a teenager in the book. He went in a boy, and came out a man that was changed forever. His whole mentality changed, he neglected God and hated him for everything that happened. He was desensitized by all the death around him, he became non-human. He grew to know how much Jews were hated by the Germans. Elie had many personal things taken away from him, his foot, gold fillings, his father, and most of his family. He saw death with his own eyes, dead baby being burned in fires, he contemplated suicide himself. The book gave you a first hand look at the holocaust which I believe Elie was trying to expose the reader to. I believe that was the theme of the book, to set the reader right there and expose to them the horror of it all. Elie wanted the reader to remember the holocaust and to not forget about all the dead victims. He tried to really show the reader the true evil of the Third Reich. I personally think this book should be require to be read by students in school regardless if they don’t want to or find it offensive. It is an event in world History that should be taught and