"Night" can be looked at as a memoir of a young Jewish teenager who grew up in concentration camps. However, even though it technically is not a memoir and our author, Elie Wiesel, has altered details, the story that follows Eliezer through the Holocaust gives its readers a detailed, personal, and emotional look into the Holocaust. This is exactly what historians will know about the Holocaust that other primary sources cannot tell. Even though periodicals and letters tell true accounts of the emotional struggles that thousands of Jewish people went through, this novel gives a full story from beginning to end. Being able to read sections of letters and reading a full story gives the readers a better understanding of the daily struggles Jewish people went through. Night gives its readers a story of a Jewish teenagers point of view during the Holocaust and allows its readers to follow Eliezer's life from when he was taken away until he was finally free. .
"Night" begins with background information on who Eliezer is. He is from an Orthodox Jewish family where he is the only son. I like the beginning of the novel because from letters and other historical evidence we have, we rarely get to see what life was like from a personal perspective before the Germans invaded. While he is still living in his town of Sighet, his teacher Moshe is expelled with all the other foreign Jews. However, after time goes by all the local Jews, Elizers family included forget about the anti Semitic act that had happened. Moshe returns and warns them that the German's are coming back for them however no one believes him. "You cannot understand. I was saved miraculously. I succeeded in coming back. I no longer care to live. I am alone. But I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me" (Wielsel, 7). This quote particularly stood out to me because what if the non-foreign Jews did listen to him? Is it possible that they could have fled from Sighet and possibly avoided going to a concentration camp? This is a view that I think we don't get from historians because they simply weren't there.
