Night. Finished 12-21-15, rating 5/5, Holocaust memoir, 120 pages, pub. 1958

Unabridged audio read by George Guidall. 4 hours.

Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War. In just over 100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own increasing disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of the father–child relationship as his father declines to a helpless state and Wiesel becomes his resentful teenage caregiver.

Penetrating and powerful, as personal as The Diary Of Anne Frank, Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its absolute and carries with it the unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again.    from Goodreads

Wow. This book is such an emotional experience that I really didn’t want it to end. At just over 100 pages there is no excuse not to pick it up and spend a few hours in the presence of a great author in the throes of the Holocaust.  Wiesel was a young teen when all the Jewish families in his neighborhood were torn apart and taken to concentration camps. 

This book made me cry, smile. love my life a little more, and worry that I am not doing enough to stand up to the people who would be okay with something like this happening again.  As has been pointed out since, it is those of us that remain on the sidelines and say nothing that are just as dangerous as those that perpetuate evil.

Elie won the Nobel Peace Prize and his powerful acceptance speech in 1986 is included in the new additions. 

I think this should be required reading for everyone.  There is a trilogy of sorts, with next, Dawn, being a fictional novella.  I’m not sure how that works but I’m willing to find out.

This was my 7th selection for the Classics Club.