Night

The second book I read was called __Night__ by Elie Wiesel. The book is dated during the Jewish Holocaust, and is about the horrors of Nazi death camps. When Elie Wiesel was a teenager, he was taken from his home along with his mother, father, and three sisters by the Gestapo to Birkenau. When the Jews arrived at Birkenau at midnight after many days of hunger on the transport trains, Elie and his father were separated from their mother and his sisters, and they would never see each other again. But soon after being separated, Elie and his father were checked up on and were not sent into the crematory. Elie and father then knew that they had passed inspection. But the happiness did not last long. Soon after that, Elie and his father were stripped, washed, put into prison clothes, and were taken to Auschwitz, a concentration camp. There they started working with other Jews to stay alive. Elie and his father stayed at Auschwitz for three weeks. They were given minimal rations of bread and soup, barely enough to keep the Jews alive. This would not stay, though, because after the three weeks, the normal laborers that were Jews were transported to a new camp: Buna. At Buna, work was not too hard and Elie and his father got more rations that at Auschwitz. There, Elie met two boys, Yossi and Tibi, almost had his gold crown in his tooth taken away, and was at Buna when he saw it being air raided by Allied forces. Elie was in his block, or group, sleeping, when the alert siren went off around Buna. In a matter of moments, American forces begun the hour-long air raid. Even though this set high hopes for all of the Jews at the camp, the Americans were not successful in putting the camp in flames. After that scene, the camp had to witness many hangings, including one of a small boy, who was the servant of a Dutch Operkapo. That day was very sad, as Elie said. After a few days, the worst possible event that a Jew had to worry about: selection. Elie passed it, but his father did not. His father was sent to the final selection that would determine who would stay and who would go. His father passed, and his father was safe, at least for the time being, because a few days after, they were transported out of Buna before the Red Army could come and save them. But this time, the transport wasn't by train. It was by foot, in the snowing weather for 42 miles to Gleiwitz. Many could not make the journey, but Elie and his father did and were shipped to Buchenwald, where Elie's father died because of sickness. For the next two and a half months, Elie struggled to live until he was finally liberated on April 11th of 1945. Elie's story will never be forgotten. -Sam Skinner Reply: I read this book before. It was nothing like anything I've read before. I thought the book was excellent and well written. I wouldn't say I liked it, because it's a kind of book you are not suppose to like. Also, the book gave me a different perspective on life after I read it. -Danny Schur