Elie Wiesel, author, historian, professor, politician and historian died on July 2nd 2016.
The news brought a tear to my eye. I was surprised how sad I felt. I have read most of Wiesel's books. Each one is powerful and moving. It is absolutely appalling to me that within 24 hours of this great man's death, the internet is buzzing with people - even Jews - who are eager to shred this man's reputation. Shame on you!
I re-read the book 'Night' - arguably one of Wiesel's best known books. It can be a quick read - only 120 pages, but powerful and enormously moving.
"Surely it was all a nightmare? An unimaginable nightmare?", reads a line from Elie Wiesel's Holocaust memoir Night. When delving into this book, one almost wishes that it were a nightmare, a horror novel. Even the worst author's imagination could not contrive of the evil contained in these small pages... And yet it is no nightmare. It is a horrifically, true story. Night recounts the tortuous days Wiesel spent at the concentration camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald as a young teenager during World War II. With starvation, sickness, exhaustion and the constant presence of crematoriums the story spirals downward as Wiesel loses his family, his childhood and his faith - only his survival instinct remains when the camps are finally liberated. The shocking atrocities are difficult and literally sickening to read but at the same time, the truth of the story echoes out that it needs to be told, needs to be read, needs to be remembered. Wiesel's powerful words construct a very tragic book, but it is a book that will leave all readers with tremendous respect for him and all those who survived.
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