Elie Wiesel's The River At Night

I loved this book so much. There is so much action and is so much better and exciting with so much amazing detail and description. This is one of my favorite books ever. When you read it, you don’t want to put it down and it makes you feel like you are with the characters in the book and you know them so well. I recommend this book to anyone who can read at this level.

During the Holocaust they counted that 6 million Jews died.The Jews faced many difficulties, death being the main one. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, he told his story of the difficulties he faced during the Holocaust. The Nazis were horrible to the Jews; they gave them little food, made them march many miles, worked them long hard hours, and when on the train they had little air. Because Elie Wiesel overcame his difficulties he faced during the Holocaust, I feel I can overcome my problems and live a wonderful life.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, the author reflects on his own experience of being separated from his family and eventually his own religion. This separation was not by any means voluntary, they were forced apart during the Holocaust. Wiesel was a Jew when the invasion of Hungary occurred and the Germans ripped members of his religion away from their home in Sighet. A once peaceful community where Wiesel learned to love the Kabbalah was now home to only dust and lost memories. Most members of that Jewish community were never to return, hell greeted them with open arms as they walked through the now rusty gates of Auschwitz. In order to survive unimaginable circumstances that were enforced in these camps, a boy had to hang on to his humanity. But by no means did humanity stay with the boy, being subjected to the horror of concentration camps, Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Elie Wiesel saw first-hand how members of other communities attempt to silence opposing voices. All of the pain that Wiesel saw inspired him to keep watch and tell stories for people who wouldn’t live on to tell them for their own families. Stories are what keeps a person alive and through Eliezer’s words that he puts down many are able to get a sense of closure in knowing what occurred at these camps. One story occurred on the first train ride away from home, a lady named Madame Schächter was beaten up for crying out against imminent death, unseen by others.

Another thing that I liked about the book is that at the beginning, the wake/vigil/funeral was so accurately described. Funerals are awkward, tiring, and numbing. Meursault

It was in Auschwitz during 1944, at the time of arrival about midnight when the smell of burning flesh saturated the air. There was an unimaginable nightmare of a truck unloading small children and babies thrown into the flames. However, this is only one event in this entire tragedy of events to be remembered in order to understand how deeply literal and symbolic the book entitled Night by Elie Wiesel is. The novel brings light to the reader about what the Jews faced while in the fire, hell and night; nonetheless, the author portrays each and every day during this year as a night in hell of conflagration. "Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes." (Wiesel 20). When Wiesel arrived at the camp he counted the longest dreadful ten steps of his life; he realized that his nightmare has just become unimaginable.

What begins and has no end, and ends all that which begins? The answer is death. Most of the time, death is a topic people tend to avoid or deviate from since it causes uncertainty and fear to surface. During the Holocaust, however, death lingered through the air as thick, black smoke does, suffocating its victims and cruelly seizing their lives. The grim reaper was a daily visitor in the ghettos, transports, and concentration camps in which about six million Jews perished. Death was not only physical for people also experienced moral, emotional, and spiritual death. Countless people lost the faith and values that they had developed throughout their whole life once they experienced or witnessed the brutality and horrors of the Holocaust. Once

Some positives or likes I had while reading are as follows below. One like I had about the book was the description of the murder. “The eye sockets were empty.” (pg. 43) This helps you envision the body, how they found it in the book. Another like I had with the book is, ““She bought a car, Cam. She’s left New York.”” (pg.73) The aspect of her long lost mother rushing to see her the entire story adds more suspense. The last thing I enjoyed about the book is, “Kyle’s hand reached in front of her and snapping it shut with a small click.” (pg.232). I like the end how Kyle is the killer, a twist I think no one expected.

For the most part, the novel was very enjoyable. One aspect of it that I loved was that the storyline was extremely intense, which always compelled me to find out what would happen next. For example,

It has been said, “the bigger the challenge, the more your sacrifices will impact you.” This statement not only applies to people who face a small challenge, but to people who have been chased by death. In Elie Wiesel’s telling of the Holocaust in Night, the events that he witnessed have significantly changed him. He was sent to a concentration camp as a young teenager, and had to overcome many traumatic situations including: being tortured by the nazis, and watching his father get beat up multiple times. He doesn’t realize how much he has changed till the end of his stay at the concentration camps, but he became more mature and determined.

Waves crashed into the small hull, her tiny voice being drowned out by the sound of it. Between the lighting flashes, she sees the two adults race along the boat, securing belongings that had come loose. Her brother sits near her, frightened and crying, yet somehow comforting as her tiny hands cling to his fur. The rain whipped around them, blown about by fierce winds, and she covered her head to protect against the stinging droplets. Another crack echoed in her ears, but this one was not accompanied by thunder. Water rushed over her feet as the hull bent into strange new shapes around her. Another crash of lightning revealed nothing but the now illuminated night sky, roiling with the dark clouds of the storm. Then the cold overwhelmed her, the current dragging her away from her sibling and under the water. Spinning recklessly, she flailed in the depths until the darkness set in, mercifully quieting

The Night was written to remind people of the tragedies occurred during the holocaust, aswell to tell people that it is an obligation to pass on stories of the holocaust to further generations. In the Preface, Elie mentions how terrible the holocaust really was, while doing so several times. The author mentions seven clear words that describe the holocaust, “Hunger-thirst-fear-transport-selection-fire-chimney:” In the concentration camps, there was little or food and drink. The fear of dying, getting separated from family, friends, and loved ones. The day of being sent on trains filled with people, with no room to spare. Either being sent to death, or working in horrible conditions with little food, and the sight of flames coming out of the

Many Americans Have read Night by Elie Wiesel. The book tells his experience at the german concentration camps. Another story, through a less known is David Faber.

Night and Boys in the Boat books that are completely different but they both share a common lesson on pushing through difficult times in life. Night took place during World War Two, at German concentration camps, Nazis were capturing Jewish people and sent them to concentration camps along with Elie Wiesel. Boys in the boat is about a boy named Joe Rantz who had to provide for himself at a young age. Joe joined the crew team for college, he found trust in his crew members and became friends with them. Boys in the Boat and Night are both books that are great examples of people never giving up and being resilient.

“There was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight” (99). Fighting is a common theme across many pieces of literature. This time, fighting comes up in multiple occasions, as the book takes place during a time of great fighting, World War II. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel uses fighting as a motif to demonstrate that survival is dependent on having the strength to fight, as shown in the scene where Akiba Drumer dies, the scene where kids were fighting over a coin, and the scene when Elie’s father dies. Akiba Drumer is a faithful believer in God and a happy spirit in the camp until selection.

I really liked the book. It was very enjoyable to read. I would recommend it to my friends, because I think they