Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Night Trilogy, by Elie Wiesel

Last weekend I finished this book. I liked it a lot, because Elie Wiesel writes quite well, and the way he expresses his thoughts and questions is very compelling.
The first story, "Night" is an account of his time in the guetto and in the concentration camp of Auschwitz, when he was a boy. The experience was like a very long night, and it destroyed the faith he had in God. This is particularly sad, because he was a very religious little boy, and I think it's terrible when children lose their innocence and beliefs.
The other 2 stories are fiction: In "Dawn", an israeli terrorist has to kill a British prisoner come dawn, in the time when the State of Israel didn't exist and the British controlled Palestine.
In "Accident", a concentration camp survivor gets hit by a car many years after his liberation, but in the aftermath (among hallucinations and flashbacks to his old life) you realize that the camp - and Death - are still a part of his life.
This book is called one of the masterpieces of Holocaust literature, and it's really very deep and thought-provoking. The main issue, in my opinion, was the loss of God.

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