Night: It was a Long Night, with Pitch Darkness

Abigail
Nov 27, 2021
7 min read

Updated: Jan 4, 2022

Astounding evilness we are capable of, as testified in Night by Elie Wiesel

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke.

Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.

Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.

Never. (p.34)

Calamity is Coming, But Can You Believe It?

Your world as you know it is just an illusion. In an instant, it will be turned upside down with no chance of going back.

Reading this book Night by Elie Wisel, I have the privilege of flipping its first page already knowing how the story ends because this is an account of a true historical event. The Holocaust operated by the government of Nazi Germany wiped out millions of people’s lives. This horrible event gravely affected Elie and his family as well, turning their lives upside down in an utterly irrevocable way.

When the events of World War II and the Holocaust invaded his home in Sighet, Transylvania (It was part of Hungary between 1940 and 1944) in 1941, Elie was only a twelve years old boy. It is described that life was normal in Sighet most of the time except for some occasions that reminded the town residents of the cold fact that they are in a war. A foreign Jew named Moishe the Beadle who had been once deported to a forest in Poland to dig huge trenches only to get shot by the Gestapo (The official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe). Moishe was able to escape by a miracle, though injured, and came back to Sighet to warn others of the upcoming calamity.

The in-towners did not believe him, of course. Their lives were too normal to believe it.

As for Moishe, he wept and pleaded:

“Jews, listen to me! That’s all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!” he kept showing in synagogue, between the prayer at dusk and the evening prayer.

Even I did not believe him. I often sat with him, after services, and listen to his tales, trying to understand his grief. But all I felt was pity.

“They think I’m mad,” he whispered, and tears, like drops of wax, flowed from his eyes. (p.7)

Why did people not care to listen to him at all? Moishe was a foreigner Jew. When all foreigner Jews were forcibly deported, there was no report that Jews from Sighet tried to rescue them. Did people possibly look down on him because he was a foreigner? Whatever the case, Moishe’s solemn warning did not affect them, as if his words vanished into thin air.

It only took less than two years until the shadow of death came nearer, starting to choke their necks. There were a few more ‘opportunities’ for Elie’s family to assess the situation differently, and eventually to escape. The naive optimism blinded their eyes: No such thing so evil can’t happen to us and won’t happen to us because there are too many of us and we are living in the days of civilization, right?

The trees were in bloom. It was a year like so many others, with its spring, its engagements, its weddings, and its births.

The people were saying, “The Red Army is advancing with giant strides … Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to…”

Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us.

Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century! (p.8)

Elie’s father was a respected member of his town. When a new law created to oppress Jews was enforced, people sought after his insight. Yet, Elie’s father didn’t seem to apprehend the leaden seriousness of the situation yet.

Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yellow star.

Some prominent members of the community came to consult with my father, who had connections at the upper levels of the Hungarian police; they wanted to know what he thought of the situation. My father’s view was that it was not all bleach, or perhaps he just did not want to discourage the others, to throw salt on their wounds:

“The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal…”

(Poor Father! Of what then did you die?) (p.11)

As a reader of the future, I have the privilege of hindsight. Every time an opportunity for Elie’s family to escape to save themselves passed by, my heart sank. The calamity had been looming from far before it eventually arrived at the door. But how can I blame them? The scale of this tragedy was simply too large to even imagine, to speculate it will or might really happen. We all have a tendency to view and assess our current situation through the eyes shaped by our past experiences; it becomes extremely frail and useless when we encounter something that’s like no other we have had in the past. Genocide was definitely something outside of their boxes.

In Auschwitz Where The Shadow of Death Engulfs

When Elie and his family arrived in Auschwitz, he was utterly shocked to witness things that are too evil to comprehend. People do not get treated as people. If you are a Jew, you are as good as a piece of trash that will be thrown and burned away sooner or later. And those ‘people’ burning other people did not seem to flinch in doing what they were doing.

I pinched myself: Was I still alive? Was I awake? How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent? No. all this could not be real. A nightmare perhaps… Soon I would wake up with a start, my heart pounding, and find that I was back in the room of my childhood, with my books… (p.32)

Following the accounts of what Elie witnessed and experienced at Auschwitz were beyond shocking. Beyond horror. As I carefully turned over page after page, stuck with terror as I unconsciously held my breath, my heart lurched. I may have heard some horror stories that kept me awake at night, but those were strictly fictional; what I was reading was however absolutely factual. The reality illustrated in those pages was immeasurably worse than any horror story I have ever heard. One example: People so-called ‘dentists’ called every Jew who had any golden teeth in their mouth and extracted all of them so that they could monetize them. Where is civilization? Where is dignity? Where is humanity?

Painfully Cruel Lesson to Embed in Our Hearts

Near the end, there was a specific incident that especially aggrieved my heart. It was a scene with a cargo filled with Jews. They were dangerously extremely scrawny: They had been barely surviving without food. Then people who watched them lifelessly being carried away by a wagon were intrigued and decided to do a “charity” by throwing a coin or a bread crumb. They knew what such an action would bring: these severely famished people would fight each other over a coin or a crust of bread. These people did it so that they can watch this commotion as if it is a circus show. A very clear line was drawn between the Jews and the spectators. Well-nourished spectators entertained themselves by throwing a bread crust to the Jews as if they inserted a coin into an arcade machine.

Oh, yes, throw that dry bread crumb to them. We don’t need that but watch how they will hurt each other over that. How pathetic! They are not us, and we can’t ever be like them. Why feeling guilty? I am doing a favor for them! It’s what they want!

A crowd of workmen and curious passerby had formed all along the train. They had undoubtedly never seen a train with this kind of cargo. Soon, pieces of bread were falling into the wagons from all sides. And the spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread.

A piece fell into our wagon. I decided not to move. Anyway, I knew that I would not be strong enough to fight off dozens of violent men! I saw, not far from me, an old man dragging himself on all fours. He had just detached himself from the struggling mob. He was holding one hand to his heart. At first, I thought he had received a blow to his chest. Then I understood: he was hiding a piece of bread under his shirt. With lightning speed he pulled it out and put it to his mouth. His eyes lit up, a smile, like a grimace, illuminated his ashen face. And was immediately extinguished. A shadow had lain down beside him. And this shadow threw itself over him. Stunned by the blows, the old man was crying:

“Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me … You’re killing your father … I have bread … for you too … for you too …”

He collapsed. But his fist was still clutching a small crust. He wanted to raise it to his mouth. But the other threw himself on him. The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. Nobody cared. His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and began to devour it. (p.101)

The title of this book “Night” precisely represents the lives of the Jews during the horrendous period of the Holocaust.

“The days resembled the nights, and the nights left in our souls the dregs of their darkness.” (p.100)

The night of pitch darkness. No glimpse of hope. No sight of conscience. Not a hint of the world as we once knew it.

So, What's the Takeaway?

First, unless we decide our value and commit to it way ahead of time, we humans are capable of doing things that are unthinkably evil. When everyone goes in one direction, it is challenging to go in the opposite direction. If you do not determine your way of thinking and action, the world around you will determine it for you.

Second, there are always places that are thrown into the “night” of pitch darkness that require our attention. This book won the Nobel Peace Prize but we do not want any books to win another Nobel Peace Prize for the same reason. ‘Holocaust’ is not just a one-time special event in history; in some places around the world, it is still a going-on problem. Civil wars, human trafficking, terrorism, gender oppression, the list goes on. We must be sensitive to it. And always remember that prejudice and hatred only bring destruction and centuries-long regret, not peace.

Review written on May 03, 2021