"Night" by Elie Weisel

There is so much to say about this story. Powerful, touching. The story of a teenage jew, Eliezer, during the darkest times for the world in the twentieth century: the second world war. He, as many others, was deported to the concentration camps, and lived his own terrifying story in there. He started thinking about understanding the Kabbalah, but ends up worrying about what to eat, what to do to help his father... how to survive. 

To start with, himself. How powerful it was to be wanting to devote his life to something and then having his plans changed for something he would suffer and could not complain about. Being so young, with so many plans in mind, with a wonderful family... it was just not fair, not only for him, but for every deportee and people who suffered.

The experience he had made him go even against his values. Everything he knew to be good and the faith he had in human beings was lost form the very first moment he arrived at a concentration camp. He tried to keep up the faith in something, but in the end his only wish was to survive for his father, as they loved each other. But he would end up looking at him as an obstacle rather than a reason to live. It is impressive how a mind that aims towards kindness and values ends up just worrying about its personal fate. The situations were strong, definitely.

And his dad, being almost everyone's councelor and adviser, ends up not knowing how to keep up the hope for light, for day. He almost lets himself die, instead of having the courage to continue living. Someone so admired and respected for his inner strength...

But of course I cannot know about that. It sounds so easy to tell about what one thinks should have happened, but just to imagine the situation, the people, the atmosphere... It makes me drop a tear. Those dark times are only within my mind, within what I can know it was, but I cannot think of myself in those situations. I just cannot, it is difficult to put yourself in a situation you cannot even imagine, just barely. 

Four moments in the story stay in me more than the others:

• The first one was when he sees the babies being burnt. I can just say it made me cry. My imagination flies very high. I had to stop reading for a minute. 
• Then, when some guy says that because he was strong, he was made to put his father in the furnace. Wow! That truly shocked me. I stopped reading again. I could not imagine how it would be to be in his place, having to see your dad's face craying, maybe begging, and still having to do it, to burn alive the one that gave you life and loves you. Despite being a very little part in the book, it stuck inside me. 
• When the boy plays the violin in front of the mountain of dead and nearly dead bodies. It is just amazing, a "just in movies" moment. I cannot say anything else, but that I cannot describe how wonderful it felt when reading that. Sadness, Relief, Hope, everything put together. It was truly a little heaven in the middle of hell.
• And the fourth one, when Elie looks at a mirror for the first time since he was deported and sees "a corpse looking at him". That much he had changed! He was no longer himslef and maybe it was the same terror that fills you when watching a ghost movie, or a disgusting image, that despite being tolerable in the sense that it does not blind you, it makes you not wanting to see it. Poor boy.

After reading Night, I had breakfast. I did not want to eat. There was fruit, milk, bread and eggs on my place. I was very touched by the book. And the same as the other WWII stories, it is unbelievable how they are actually true. It is a book that should be read. You feel the story and understand many things about how the concentration camps worked. 


(Sorry! I swear I tried to be breve!)