Night by Elie Wiesel

I’ll provide this review as a drastic contrast of experiences. I had just finished the last page of Night by Elie Wiesel, his 1956 memoir originally published in Yiddish and then in French in 1958. It’s about Elie being with his father in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. His father died only a short while before the camp was liberated. I’ve read a lot about the holocaust, but it’s taken me decades to get ready to read this book. This book resulted in the author winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. It is a great testimony of man’s inhumanity to man. The deprivation, abuse and death which is written about leads me back to one of my own earlier comments, that we humans are not a praiseworthy species. If you’re interested in learning more details about the holocaust, this is an essential novel to digest.

 

The contrast in my experience was that only a few hours after completing Wiesel’s book, my wife and I took four of our grandchildren (ages nine to four, and there are two more who are simply too young) to see The Lion King on stage in San Diego. I was familiar with the animated movie, but I had not gone to this play before. It was stunning, literally about “the circle of life.” I was in tears of joy from the opening number, it is so beautiful. We had planned this day for 8 months since it is not always easy to bring the family together, and I could both see the beauty of the circle on stage and feel it in real life in our seats. The children were all entranced, as was I. We may not be an impressive species, but we do have our special moments, and I was glad to have had such a moment after having spent some hours on the dark side of our existence with Wiesel.

 

WCD