Night

When he said Jesus again I couldn't take it, and for the only time in my life I was discourteous, which I regret to this day. I said, "Mr. Mauriac . . . ten years or so ago, I have seen children, hundreds of Jewish children, who suffered more than Jesus did on his cross and we do not speak about it." I felt all of a sudden so embarrassed. I closed my notebook and went to the elevator. He ran after me. He pulled me back; he sat down in his chair, and I in mine, and he began weeping. I have rarely seen an old man weep like that, and I felt like such an idiot . . . And then, at the end, without saying anything, he simply said, "You know, maybe you should talk about it."
—Elie Wiesel

On April 11, 1945, the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated, and among the freed inmates was a young man named Elie Wiesel. He had lost his father, his mother, and one of his sisters. For a decade he worked as a journalist and refused to even discuss the Holocaust. In 1954, he poured his experiences into an eight-hundred-page book and called it And the World Remained Silent, but the public was generally apathetic. Then in 1955, he interviewed the Christian (and Christ-obsessed) novelist Francois Mauriac, with the results described in the page quote, and with Mauriac's help he published a greatly abridged edition in France, then America, calling it La Nuit or Night.

The story? A simple one, the tale of a young boy named Eliezer and his father Shlomo, and their experiences in Birkenau, Auschwitz and Buchenwald; the tale of how Shlomo lost his life and Eliezer lost his faith.

Tropes used in Night include:

"We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything—death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth."

  • Based on a True Story: It's not entirely clear how much of the book is based on actual events. Wiesel himself has said that "Some events do take place but are not true; others are, although they never occurred," and he tends to get offended when people call it fiction.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The camp is liberated, and despite all of his hellish experiences, Eliezer survives. But in the chilling ending, when Elie stares in a mirror, he realizes how much the experience has dehumanized him despite the liberation.
  • Cassandra Truth: Moshe, who can't prove his citizenship, is the first to be hauled off in a cattle train, but manages to escape. No one listens to his warnings.
  • Determinator: Eliezer embodies both the good and bad sides of this trope, surviving no matter what he has to do and who he has to abandon.
  • Driven to Suicide: Eliezer considers it; and even after he backs out, he considers himself dead anyway.
  • Due to the Dead: Shlomo recites the Kaddish for those who die.
  • Dying Like Animals: Lots of Bats in the book's early sections.
    • Even Eliezer himself.
  • Flash Forward
  • Friend to All Children: Josef Mengele plays himself up as this. Subverted hard, given that he was Josef Mengele and had a reason for being so outwardly nice to the children.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Though they're far lesser-known than this book, Wiesel wrote two fictional follow-ups to his memoir, both exploring the plight of Holocaust survivors and their efforts to reconcile with the past. The first was called Dawn, and the second was called Day. Together with Night, they form a trilogy.
  • Irony- Tragic in his case.

"The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it...."

  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown
  • No One Gets Left Behind: Subverted. During the march from Birkenau to Auschwitz anyone who moves too slowly is shot. Rabbi Eliahou can no longer manage to run, and loses his son in the crowd, but is determined to find him. Eliezer declines to tell him that said son abandoned him after seeing him limping, and prays to God for the spiritual strength never to abandon his own father. He doesn't get it, and is ultimately too cowardly to help the dying Shlomo.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: Eliezer comes to hate God for allowing the Holocaust.
  • A Taste of the Lash: As Disproportionate Retribution for discovering an affair between an SS and a young Polish girl.
  • World War II
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