"Night" by Elie Wiesel

I had never heard of the novel "Night" by Elie Wiesel before this class. I remember in high school we briefly studied the Holocaust. In my English Language Arts class freshman year, we read “Anne Frank” and discussed the terrible things that happened to the Jewish people. We often talked about how people would hide Jews, and how the Jews were put into concentration camps. We never once looked at the Holocaust through the perspective of a Jew that was in a concentration camp.

Wiesel’s description was more horrific then I was prepared for. I had nightmares the night I finished the book. Wiesel’s depiction of his first night in the camp was terrifying. I can’t even fathom the fear that all those people were feeling. I can’t imagine not knowing if I was ever going to see my family again. What Wiesel (and many other Jews) went through is terrible and no human being should have had to endure that torment. The two scenes that come to my mind are the scene where the Polish are throwing babies in the air for target practice and the first day in the concentration camp when they were dumping kids into the fire pit alive. Those scenes were hard for me to even read, I can’t imagine what it was like for people’s daily lives to deal with that fear.

I would use this book in my classroom just because it would give students a new perspective on what happened in the Holocaust. Often, adults want to sugar coat events and ignore things that happened. I think it is important for students to be aware of things that have happened in history, so it doesn’t happen again. This book could also give students an appreciation of how strong the Jewish people and culture is.

The only thing I would be careful about is the graphic nature of this book. I would use this book in a group of older more mature students. (11^th-12^th grade most likely.) I would also need to bring up resources for students how may be troubled by the graphic areas of the book. Regardless of the graphic nature, I wish I would have read this in high school and if I can work it into my classroom I will.