Book Summary

Night 
Written by Elie Wiesel

Night begins in 1941, when, the narrator of the story, Elie, is twelve years old. Having grown up in a little town called Sighet in Transylvania, Elie is a deeply religious boy with a loving family consisting of his parents and three sisters. One day, Moshe the Beadle, a Jew from Sighet, comes back and warns the town of the impending dangers of the German army. No one listens and years pass by. But by 1944, Germans are already in the town of Sighet and they set up ghettos for the Jews. After a while, the Germans begin the deportation of the Jews to the concentration camp in Auschwitz. The Jews of Sighet are forced into crowded cattle wagons, each car consisting of eighty people. The conditions of the train ride are horrific. When the train arrives at its destination, they are at Birkenau, the reception center for Auschwitz. The air smells of burning flesh.

At Birkenau, Elie is separated from his mother and sisters. Realizing the importance of being together, Elie and his father lie about their age. As they prepare to enter the camp, they see a ditch where babies are thrown into a burning flame. Elie cannot imagine that this is actually happening. They are then moved to a new camp. After a long march, they enter Auschwitz. After a brief stay at Auschwitz, they are moved to a new camp, Buna. At Buna, Elie goes through the process of the concentration camps. Both he and his father experience severe beatings at the hand of the kapos. All the prisoners are overworked and undernourished.

Elie and his father manage to survive through the selection process, where the unfit are sent to the crematory. Elie suffers from a foot injury that places him in a hospital. After the surgery, the Germans decide to relocate the prisoners because of the advancement of the Russian army. The prisoners begin a long trek in the dead of winter. By the end of the winter trek to Buchenwald, out of a hundred prisoners, only a dozen survive, including Elie and his father. Although Elie's father survives the trip, he later falls ill. Elie witnesses the slow deterioration of his father's health and his eventual death. At Buchenwald, the Germans try in desperation to exterminate all the remaining Jews. But by this time, the Germans are close to defeat. Before the Germans can carry out Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews, there is a successful uprising in the camp by the resistance. On April 11, 1945, American tanks arrive at Buchenwald. As Elie recuperates in a hospital, he looks into a mirror and sees a corpse gaze back at him.

Night is a book about the holocaust which was one of the biggest events in history ever. I think that its significance is to show first hand how terrible the holocaust really was. Elie Wiesel does a very good job of describing all of the terrible things that happened and really painting an image in your head. I thought the book was very informative and eye opening. I had absolutely no idea that conditions were that bad. I think that this book should be read by everybody interested in history because it does an amazing job of showing you what the holocaust was really like.