Capter One

In chapter one we learn about the early life of Elie Wiesel, he grew up in Sighet, a small town in Transylvania. He is a strict Orthodox Jew who studies the Talmud with a foreign Jew, Moshe the Beadle. The Gestapo came one day and  Moshe was deported with all the other foreign Jews. A few months later he returns to Sighet with horrible tales, but nobody believes him. Then, fascists gain control of Hungary and  the Nazis come in and days later the town is evacuated. Elie's family is part of the last group, and their former servant, Martha, who is a gentile, warns them of all the danger and offers them a place to stay, but they refuse. I thought the fact that Elie's family did not stay with Martha was shocking, why did they not accept the help?

 I guess at the time they didn't know it could have been life saving, but it still seems like common sense to stay with Martha. It also surprised me that the people of Sighet refused to believe what Moshe was telling them, but I guess this just shows that they had no idea what was about to happen to not only them, but the whole Jewish race in Europe. 

Preface and Foreward

In the preface of 'Night", Elie Wiesel talks about why he wrote the book. He talks about his decisions when he began writing before publishing this book, he asked himself, "Why did I write it?" He says that he wrote this book to preserve the memory of everyone who died during the Holocaust and to prevent history from repeating itself. This is a very powerful statement, it really shows why he wrote the book. He states that he had a hard time finding words to describe some of the horrible things he had to go through, and he even says that his editors had to make many cuts to his original copy before it was published. I thought that the power of this short preface was incredible, just in this short reading you could tell that Weisel had to be very strong to write about all the horrible things he had to go through during the Holocaust. He wanted to create a short lasting memory of the Holocaust that the readers could experience.

 In the foreword,  the french journalist Francois Mauriac tells a story of a young Jewish boy who talked to him about the Holocaust and and all the horrors endured there. They eventually start talking about God, and how the young child  believes that God is dead and abandoned all the Jews. Then we are told that the young boy is actually Elie Wiesel himself. I thought that this was also very powerful because it shows all the horrible things that Weisel and all of the Jews had to go through at this time, but also because Mauriac does everything he can to comfort the young boy.