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Night

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Submitted By dustin06349
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Book Review #2
Night
By Elie Wiesel

The atrocities that were committed against Jews during WWII will hopefully be remembered forever. This seems a bit counterintuitive for me because when something so terrible happens I would just as soon forget about it. History as we know has a tendency to repeat itself and the only way to prevent that from happening is to keep our history in mind as we consider what our future might hold. With that in mind, I can say that I enjoyed reading Night and imagine that I will read it again one day.
In class we did not go into great detail about the Nazi’s “Final Solution” and what it really meant to the people who it was pertaining to. Our book only briefly touches on this subject as well, almost as if it is avoided in our textbook. The opening setting of Night is in the small town of Siglet in northern Transylvania which was annexed by Hungary in 1940 with Eliezer a 15 year old Jewish boy who narrators the story. Eliezer lives with his Mother, Father, and three sisters. His father was a prominent Jewish member of the community often being called upon by others for council. They all knew about Hitler and had heard about his intentions for the Jews, yet they did not believe that the world would allow such hatred and blatant disregard to humanity. Essential they had hinged their livelihood on hope and the goodness of mankind.
By autumn of 1941 Hitler was the master of the continent of Europe and he used that power to carry out his hellish idea of a “New Order.” Hitler’s intent was to create a superior Aryan race. Germany directed commanders in occupied area and the governments of the client states to deport “undesirables” to Germany for slave labor; this directive explains why the Hungarian police treated the Jews in Sighet as they did. This was the first step that would eventually lead Germany to “The Final Solution”

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