Night

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

The novel is an important historical memoir published in 1960. It was not until the trial and execution of Adolf Eichman in 1961, a year after the novel was finally published, that it came fully into the public spotlight.

Key Facts about Night

• Title: Night
• When/where written: 1955-1958, South America and France
• Published: 1960
• Genre: Memoir/Semi-fictional autobiography
• Point-of-View: First-person
• Setting: Europe during WWII
• Climax: the death of Eliezer’s father, Shlomo
• Antagonist: The SS soldiers and broader anti-Jewish laws and sentiment.

Elie Wiesel and Night

Unlike some novels that are written at a distance, Night is tied up with the author’s life in an intimate, unignorable way. Wiesel has spoken about Night as his account of what happened in the concentration camps, one that is set back only slightly from reality through the creation of Eliezer and a few changes of events and circumstances. The novel is brutally honest, and clear. Wiesel spends its brief 100 pages depicting the lead up to the ghettos, trains, and camps, the loss of his family members, including his mother and sister, and then later his father as well, his suffering (and the suffering he observed) and finally his liberation. Night is incredibly personal, so much so that its language only gives the reader so much access to a time in Wiesel’s life that anyone would want to forget, but which he knew was too important to keep in his past. The novel was written several years after WWII, from the perspective of a thirty-year-old man, looking back on himself as a young adult. The climax of the novel connects intimately to one of the most important but often overlooked themes in Night, that of father/son relationships. Or, more specifically, sons and their treatment of their fathers. When Eliezer’s father, Shlomo, dies, and Eliezer experiences freedom from the burden of his father’s care, Wiesel represents the true breadth of the changes he’d undergone in the camps and the desperate state to which he and others were existing in.

Books Related to Night

The Lasting Impact of Night 

Today, Night is commonly considered to be one of the best personal accounts of the Holocaust ever written. It is read in middle schools, high schools, and universities around the world, providing students with an insight into the horrors of the Second World War as they were experienced by someone close to their own age. It is one of the first ways that young people learn about the Holocaust. Night is also credited with helping to preserve the story of the Holocaust, something that Wiesel was incredibly passionate about. When speaking about the story of his life and the lives of millions of others who died, lost their families, homes, and identities during the war, he said that it would be “not only dangerous but offensive” to forget them.