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.