Holocaust: “Night” by Elie Wiesel

Invitation and Introduction

First, I invite you to actually read Elie Wiesel's Night, if you haven't done so already. At 34,800 words - a liberal estimate - Night's 109 pages make for a quick read. If you have already read Night, I invite you to re-read it, while bearing in mind my (following) critique.

Second, my words today will offer my analysis of Night, based on quotes from that novel.

Opening Statement

Given the fact that Elie Wiesel was, at the time Night was written, a journalist by training and had self-imposed a ten-year vow of silence before setting pen to paper, it must be concluded that Night is poorly written. Please bear in mind that my remarks address Night's literary merits and are not meant as any commentary on the Holocaust itself.

Quotes and Remarks

QUOTE [This comment appears as a testimonial preceding Wiesel's text.]: "As a human document, Night is almost unbearably painful, and certainly beyond criticism." - A. Alvarez, Commentary: END QUOTE.

REMARKS: With all due respect, nothing is "certainly beyond criticism." As for "unbearably painful," Alvarez must have no clue.

QUOTE (from the back cover of Night): "To the best of my knowledge no one has left behind him so moving a record." - Alfred Kazin: UNQUOTE.

REMARKS: I myself have not researched Holocaust literature at all, not even having read The Diary of Anne Frank. I do not doubt, for one moment, the awful truth of the Holocaust. Though I am an optimist by nature, I know full well what my fellow humans are capable of. As for Mr. Kazin's quote above, I certainly hope he is wrong in saying, "no one has left behind him so moving a record." To me, that says the personal stories of the Holocaust have been woefully under-reported.

QUOTE (Page 4): Each [Jew] had to go up to the hole [mass grave] and present his neck....How had Moshe the Beadle escaped? Miraculously. He was wounded in the leg and taken for dead. UNQUOTE.

REMARKS: According to Wiesel's account, "each [Jew] had to ... present his neck." If so, then how did Moshe the Beadle manage to be "wounded in the leg." The text doesn't even say that Moshe was shot, only that he was "wounded."

QUOTE (Page 40): [My father] was always elsewhere, lost in his thoughts. (Once a cousin came to see us at Sighet. She had been staying with us and eating at our table for over a fortnight before my father noticed her presence for the first time.) UNQUOTE.

REMARKS: This is one point in particular where the author severely challenges his readers' faith in his narrative. Come on, who can believe that a new addition at the family dining table would go unnoticed for two weeks?

QUOTE (Page 41): At the beginning of the third week [at Auschwitz], the prisoner in charge of our block was deprived of his office, being considered too humane. Our new head was savage, and his assistants were real monsters. UNQUOTE.

REMARKS: Then the book proceeds to tell us nothing at all of these men, in what ways his assistants were "real monsters." This is an instance, one of many, in which I consider Night to be incredibly underwritten. I mean, Wiesel spends over a year in concentration camps, yet manages only 34,800 words to convey his experiences?

Elie Wiesel's Foot

A great deal of Wiesel’s narrative is dedicated to a forced march, which he survived in spite of having a foot which had been recently-operated on. I don't see from his narrative how his account is believable, though of course history is full of incredible stories of personal heroism. After his ordeal, Wiesel’s foot was not amputated. You will easily see from the following why I am amazed to the point of disbelief on this aspect.

QUOTE (page 76): "I trust you absolutely, Doctor."

"Well then, listen to me. You'll be completely recovered [from this one hour operation] in a fortnight. You'll be able to walk like anyone else. The sole of your foot was all full of pus. We just had to open the swelling. You haven't had your leg amputated. You'll see. In a fortnight's time you'll be walking about like everyone else." UNQUOTE.

Page 78 [Three days after his operation, Wiesel has to join a forced evacuation from Buna]: "My wound was open and bleeding; the snow had grown red where I had trodden."

Page 79: "But I could not sleep [my last night in Buna]. My foot felt as if it were burning."

Page 79:  "I tried to find a shoe that was too large. In vain. I tore up a blanket and wrapped my wounded foot in it."

REMARK: From his text, we are to believe that Wiesel was force-marched 42 miles while wearing a shoe on one foot and a torn-up blanket on his other (wounded) foot. I'm amazed that this blanket did not fall off during his ordeal.

Page 80: "At six o'clock the bell rang. The death knell. The burial. The procession was about to begin its march."

Page 83: "When I came to myself again, I tried to slacken the pace. But there was no way. A great tidal wave of men came rolling onward and would have crushed me like an ant.

[New paragraph] I was simply walking in my sleep. I managed to close my eyes and to run like that while asleep. Now and then, someone would push me violently from behind, and I would wake up."

REMARK: The forced march was in mid-January when it "snowed relentlessly." How does one run in one's sleep through slippery snow, without slipping or being jostled by others running behind him?

Page 82: "Because of my painful foot, a shudder went through me at each step."

REMARK: They had been marching (jogging, actually) from 6 p.m. till dawn the following day, covering 42 miles before arriving at Gleiwitz. And, incredibly, Wiesel managed to do this on a recently-operated on foot. He continues on page 87, saying: "My wounded foot no longer hurt me. It must have been completely frozen."

Page 91: "We stayed at Gleiwitz for three days. Three days without food or drink." [Then the prisoners marched to an open field close to Gleiwitz and boarded a train.]

Page 95: "Ten days, ten nights of traveling [on a train, in cattle wagons with no roofs]."

REMARK: Ten days traveling, exposed to the elements? It gets viciously cold in Germany in January. How could Wiesel write something like this and not thank God Almighty for a true miracle - that he had survived those ten brutally chilling days? In Night, Wiesel bitterly condemns God, though I wonder if he comes to thank God in his later books. This is especially important, since it's well known that there are Holocaust survivors who became not only atheists, due to their WW II experiences, but worse, became hardened cynics. And many of them might have bestowed this legacy to their children, who are in the Israeli army now and can think only and exclusively of their own pain, Jewish pain, and cannot feel the pain of the other.

Conclusion

Elie Wiesel has written a narrative which did not move me nearly as much as it should have. In fact, the movie The Grey Zone was far more impacting. Elie of course had to tell his story, and each individual has the right to tell his story as he chooses. I did not suffer as did Mr. Wiesel, so that is perhaps the reason why I am simply not appreciating his words as he'd chosen them.

To Mr. Wiesel (and others), though, I will offer this: Everybody has the right to tell their story, but please: Don't forget, as you write, that there are thinking, feeling human beings out there who will read your words and interpret them based on their own perspectives. As you write, please keep us in mind, for we want to hear your story...so help us believe and understand.

Disclaimer

There will be detractors who will say, "Steven Searle is nothing more than a clever anti-Semite." And, indeed, it might seem that I am devoting a great deal of my presidential campaign to issues pertaining to Israel. However, ponder carefully, one and all: Only time will tell, but you will see that I am in fact a good friend to the Jews. So it is with friendship in my heart that I speak as I do, including these words: "Perhaps the Jews (especially of Israel) will come to realize that the ancient ideal of monarchy is more suitable to their national and religious character - and destiny."

It might seem odd, in this day and age, that a candidate for the US presidency would actually suggest that a nation give up its democracy and return to kingship. For which I offer two reasons: It's Biblical (and even Buddhistic), and Israel's current democracy has not brought forth the leaders necessary to realize its age-old dreams. [You can do waaay better than Binyamin Netanyahu as your Prime Minister.] [Of course, come to think of it, we could have done waay better than Bush I, Bush II, and Reagan, to name a few.]

Is it not written that the Lord works in mysterious ways? Perhaps even through a medium such as myself?

Steven Searle for U.S. President in 2012

"Isn't it about time we had a president who not only reads but thinks about what he reads...moreover, one who bothers to think at all?"