Night: Preface and Chapter 1

In the preface, the author describes why he wrote this book. He wanted to prevent the enemy from having "one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory". The courage from people like him in recounting these traumatic events is what prevents history from repeating itself. Books like this are why history is important. It reminds us of the cruelty capable of our fellow man, and helps us to prevent this cruelty from becoming prominent in society. Another purpose the author states for writing this book is to try and get us, those who did not have to live through these atrocities, to understand. He tells of his troubles in publishing the book and even mentions some sections that he had to cut out of the newest version. In one passage, he tells of the heart-wrenching story of his father's death. He does not honor his father's last wish for his son to be by his side out of fear. The merciless treatment from the Nazi's had deformed theauthor so much that it consumed the love that was inside him. It is one thing to kill someone physically, but another to kill him emotionally, leaving him a shell of a man. The author concludes the preface with insightful words, "He does not want his past to become their future".

Chapter 1 describes the authors life before the Holocaust. He lives in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania. He lives with his mother, father, two older sisters, and his younger sister named Tzipora. He has a teacher named Moishe the Beadle who, although poor, was widely liked. Eventually, all of the foreign Jews, one of whom was Moishe, were deported in the cattle cars to work camps. Months later, the author sees Moishe again. He seemed more cold than the Moishe that the author had come to know and love, and starts talking about how the cattle cars were stopped at the borders and the Jews in them were forced to dig their own graves and were immediately shot. None of the villagers believe him. This is the first instance of the chapter in which the villagers exhibit complete ignorance. This ignorance is caused by their isolation from what is happening in these camps as well as their own denial. It is almost frustrating to read about all of thechances that the villagers had to stop this terrible fate, but denied them. Moishe's tales begin to seem more and more true as anti-Semitic laws begin to come into effect. The Jews have to wear golden stars of David and are trapped in ghettos. If these sort of laws came into effect today, there would be and uproar of protest, but the Jews in the story accepted the laws and even supported them. Many advocated Zionism which was the belief that he Jews should form their own Jewish community. Then, the Germans decided to deport all of the Jews. The author is forced to go to the individual's homes and tell them the news. This is a terrible thing to ask a child to do, but in the atmosphere of the Holocaust, all Jews go through the same amount of pain, regardless of age. The author compares in to the captivity in Babylon or the Spanish Inquisition. However, he failed to realize that the Holocaust would come to be an event that was completely unprecedented. They are forced to pack littlepossessions and are shoved into the cattle cars. The family's former maid offered them a safe shelter, but the father refused. Another frustrating instance where the Jews denied a chance to be saved from this horror. The cattle cars begin to roll and they head towards their hellish doom. 


Picture of a Jews in a ghetto in Warsaw: 

Already the narrator is forced to witness events of extreme emotional anguish, and the reader can tell that it is deforming his personality. His innocence is already breaking, and soon it will completely shatter. One thing that the Germans have failed to break, however, is the faith among the people. Although their ignorance plays into this resilient faith, the Jews still know that they have tough times coming. But they still pray and keep their faith. They trust that God will save them, a trust that will soon be tested as they witness and experience the true horrors of the Holocaust. 


Throughout the passage, many Jews, including Elie Wiesel, advocate Zionism. This is the idea that the Jewish people should be allowed to form an exclusively Jewish community in their homeland. Wiesel intrestingly states that the ghettos were similar to Zionism. This raises a question of whether Zionism is a racist movement. I found a link that addresses this question http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/Zionism_Is_Not_Racism.html . For anyone commenting, do you think Zionism can be compared with the ghettos? Is Zionism racist? Why or why not?