"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
"Never shall I forget that smoke.
"Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
"Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
"Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
"Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
"Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
"Never."
Look, I don't have adequate words to do justice to Elie Wiesel's staggering memoir "Night" (originally titled "And the World Remained Silent"). After jokingly suggesting that I turned to it so I could read something later after ingesting social media in 2020, I was crying before the book even started.
French novelist and Wiesel confidante Francois Mauriac penned the foreword and asked this staggering question to set the tone for this translation:
"Have we ever considered the consequences of a less visible, less striking abomination, yet the worst of all, for those of us who have faith: the death of God in the soul of a child who suddenly faces absolute evil?"
"Night" is stark, yet chilling; stoic, yet moving; understated, yet massively powerful. One can be moved to tears just reading the foreword, and yet this work calls out for your immersion.
"We were the masters of nature, the masters of the world. We had transcended everything -- death, fatigue, our natural needs. We were stronger than cold and hunger, stronger than the guns and the desire to die, doomed and rootless, nothing but numbers, we were the only men on earth."
"The darkness enveloped us. All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. He played that which he would never play again."
This version was re-translated 45 years later by his wife, Marion, to better capture the emotions and perspectives of the author when he was 15 years old. This volume includes the text of his incredible acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize that he won in 1986.
"And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere."
Unquestionably, reading "Night" is emotionally exhausting -- yet it remains a necessary and vitally important chronicle for all audiences.
"One day when when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
"From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.
"The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me."
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