Night by Elie Wiesel

In order to honor a man whose words have changed my life and outlook, I am going to write about Elie Wiesel's Nobel Prize winning book, Night.

The freshman curriculum at MHS needed another book added for all levels of freshman English.  It wasn't much of a choice, really.  Night had been chosen a couple of years before to be added to the Eliot Rosewater reading list, and I had read this powerful book then.  We wanted something that would bring about awareness, and we also wanted a voice in which the students could relate.  Night was the best choice by far. 

Elie Wiesel is only fifteen when he and his family are sent to the concentration camps.  "Men to the left.  Women to the right."  Those eight words caused the family to be separated, and Elie never saw his mother or his sister again.  

Elie and his father are sent to Auschwitz, and Elie promises to take care of his father.  He questions God and the reasons for all of the inhumanities that he has to endure.  He questions humanity, and he wonders why the world is standing by not getting involved when men, women, and children are being burned.  

This book was one I taught to many, many students.  I shall never forget the day that one of the toughest girls I had ever had in class broke down in tears and asked me how people could be so awful to each other?  I had no answer to that question as I ponder the same thing every time I hear about a mass shooting, a car bomb, a crime against a man, woman, or child, or any act of terrorism. 

I often wonder how many incidents will it take before we stand up and say that we have had enough.  I often feel powerless, but I do have a voice on social media, and I intend to use this voice as I can to bring as much awareness as I can from my little space in the world.  

Elie didn't understand how he survived, and he really doesn't know how he did.  What he did know is that he was the voice for his tortured generation, and he felt that he must speak out for those who couldn't.  

"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe."  Elie Wiesel

Thank you, Elie, for making me wonder what I can do differently each day to make this world a little better.