Elie Wiesel Books

I loved this book. As much as I would like to understand how the Shoah happened, as a Christian, after reading Wiesel, I have to respond to the psalmist's command "and all wickedness shuts its mouth. Psalm 107:42."

Most of Wiesel's books are fiction, but in this one, he is the main character. The book is thoughtful and thought provoking. My copy was given me by a jewish friend whom I had to convince I wanted to keep it; she wanted to keep it too! (I normally return borrowed books).

Haunting when Wiesel returns to Sighet in Romania to walk the streets of his hometown. He reflected "Nothing had changed. The house was the same, the street was the same, the world was the same, God was the same. Only the jews had disappeared." Can you imagine anything like that?

If it is any consolation, and I hope Mr. Wiesel is not offended, "behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, behold your salvation comes, and his recompense with Him. Isaiah 62:11" And, from Isaiah 61:8 "the Lord loves justice, He hates robbery and wrong." And from Isaiah 25:8 "and the Lord God will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and will swallow up death in victory."

And if Christians do not see the writing on the wall and see our own guilt in what transpired in this last century, and at least respond with knocking knees, as Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, did, then Christianity is in deep trouble. But those are my own reflections not Wiesel's. He states in this book "That is what I reproach us for: our boundless arrogance in thinking we know everything." And "I repeat: hatred is no solution."

i would love to read this book it looks very exciting! i have learned alot about the holocaust and i would like learn more! i am only a student in 8th grade but i feel sorry for all the people that had to suffer and if i could afford the book i would probley buy it but i am sorry i cant! so i guess then i cant enter for this but i just wanted to tell u how i thought! ~ thank-you

Elie Weissel is SO talented, his words dance across the paper and will be rememberred for a long time.

I recall when I first read 'Night', it was just after Elie Wiesel had given a lecture at my university. It was in the mid-1980s, and the lecture hall was standing-room-only. Wiesel's presentation moved us to tears, and moved us to anger, and moved me to want to follow up on his words by reading what he had written.

This is supposed to be fiction, but in a style that seems to be typical of many modern Israeli novelists, it is so close to the truth of the actual events that transpired in Wiesel's life that it might as well be treated as autobiographical. This is actually part of a trilogy - Night, Dawn, and The Accident - although each element stands alone with integrity.

How does one deal with survival after such atrocities as that at Birkenau and Auschwitz? How can one have faith in the world? How can one accept that a people so closely identified with a powerful God can ever accept that God again? Where is God in the midst of such things?

Wiesel himself as spent his life in search of such answers, but doesn't provide them here. Why then would one want to read such accounts as these? Wiesel was silent for many years, until he was brought into speech and writing as a witness to the events. Wiesel proclaims that there is in the world now a new commandment - 'Thou shalt not stand idly by' - when such things are happening, one must act. One must remember the past in all its personal aspects to both honour those who suffered and to forestall such things happening again (which, given the the depressing repetitive nature of history, is a difficult task).

This is the longest short book I've ever read. It is one that has stayed with me from the first page, and I've never been able to shake the images brought forward, the misery and suffering, the existence of evil and brutality, the sadness and desolation. We live in a culture that likes to gloss over pain and suffering, mask it with drugs and other things, and always end the story with a happy ending.

There is no happy ending here - even Wiesel's own survival is a questionable good here. How does one live after this? How does the world go on?

One thing is certain, we must never forget, and this book is part of that active remembering that we are called to do.

George Guidall's narration gives dramatic emphasis that one might think unnecessary, given the subject matter. There are harrowing pieces and poignant times made more powerful by the reading. This really isn't a book for drive-time listening, but the audio component can add much to the experience of this tale.

"On Both Sides of the Wall" is the story of Vladka Meed during World War 2 in Warsaw Poland. She provides an important perspective of what life was like both inside and outside the ghetto. Vladka was involved in the ghetto revolt and as a courier outside the ghetto. She was able to pass herself off as being non-Jewish. She helped to find hiding places for other Jews and kept in contact with those in hiding. Her story continues through to the Warsaw revolt - when the whole city was fighting against the German forces.

I have read dozens of WWII and holocaust books. I most enjoy those books, such as this, that are written from the perspective of the regular person (doing extraordinary things). I learned a lot from this book and recommend it highly.

Elie Weisel mines the Tanakh, Talmud, and hasidic legends for characters to analyze under his astute microscope. Weisel's prose is always magnificent, and this book is no different. He turns the texts and traditions over, this way and that, finding that we really didn't know what we thought we did about these characters. Under Weisel's skilled pen, the kingdom of darkness haunts the background of these tales, adding poignancy to events long past.

Elie Wiesel wrote the book which more than any other perhaps, brought home to mankind the horror of the 'Shoah' His work 'Night' was one of the eternal classics of witnessing.
This commemorative volume opens with an interview by its editor Harry Cargas with Wiesel. Wiesel as always speaks in a fascinating and moving way. He talks about his being primarily a teacher and writer, and explains how he after surviving the 'Shoah' chose that path instead of one in business. He tells the story of how he after the War wandered in New York hungry most of the time even though he was employed by an Israeli newspaper as a reporter.
Wiesel speaks of how he has to be his own Rebbe, and how he spends much time thinking of those teachers and friends who were lost in the Shoah.
He is the person of remembrance, and he speaks of how with the years the memories have not grown less or diminished but rather intensified.
The volume also contains a number of moving writings by Wiesel including a concluding piece on his relation to Jerusalem.
Among those who provide essays in tribute are one of the great Jewish thinkers of the century, Emil Fackenheim, and the Christian theologian and friend of the Jewish people, Franklin Littell.
Wiesel truly deserves to be honored as the courageous witness of the Shoah, and its evil. He also deserves to be honored as a moral voice for Mankind who has repeatedly spoken out against Man's inhumanity to Man.

I received this item in a timely matter in great condition! Would do business with again!

As an English teacher, I have my ninth graders read this memoir every year. And every year, I am moved to tears. Not only does Mr. Wiesel tell of his devastating experience of dehumanization in the Holocaust, but he tells it with such eloquence and mastery of the English language, that one would wonder if he was always a writer. This is his first book and it reads like a story written by some of the greatest writers of the literary canon. Be forewarned that his story will change your perspective on life and will most likely you move you to tears as well. If it doesn't, than as my Pastor would say, "your wood is wet."

You may be asking yourself, "why would I want to read something that will just get me upset?" My answer to that is that if we don't get upset, how can we facilitate change? Ignorance leads to bliss? No way--it leads to destruction. Furthermore, antisemitism hasn't gone away. And in the midst of the violence and hatred exploding in the middle east 63 years after Hitler was defeated, there are millions of people who once again want to annihilate the Jews and are devising plans to do just that. So this memoir must be read. Mr. Wiesels' story must be heard.

From the moment we had began on this book in our classes it was truly an eye opener. Words cannot describe the misery that was felt in each and every word this book had within. The book itself had casted night over all of us, especially me as we listened intently on what could be known as the most heart striking tale. From the start of the camp to the death marchings in the snow, the story gives a full eye account of the horror that was seen in the Nazi war. No story ever has been written so amazingly nor dramaticly as this. Yes, it touched me darkly and it burned deeply but this story, this story is something everyone should read because no one should forget what happened so long ago. You cant go your whole life without reading this book, its something that you should not miss.

I give it a rating of five stars and I hope you, the reader, can also find that too.

Night by Elie Wiesel is an excellent first hand account into the atrocities the Jew endured at the German prisoner and slave labor camps of World War II. This volume gives students additional connections into understanding the situations. Excellent version!!!

This is the true story of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. A religious Jew, Wiesel was a young boy during the German invasion. He and his family were taken captive by the Nazis and put into the concentration camps where he witnessed atrocities that destroyed his family and shattered his faith.

Told simply and succintly, this first person account is haunting. Wiesel speaks with a numb detachment, sensationalizing nothing. He asks for no pity. He simply describes what he saw.

It is only one person's point-of-view of perhaps the most important event in modern history, but his testimony feels as big as the Holocaust itself. That this is one of millions of stories that could be told is shocking again, even if you've seen movies or read other books on the topic. You come away from this book with a better understanding of what happened, and many unanswerable questions as to why it happened.

As other reviewers have suggested, this book should be required reading for all high school students.

If you haven't read this book then you must read it. I have nothing else to say about it than that. The feelings and emotions this book stirred within me are too great to put into words. At the end of the book there is a speech given by Elie Wiesel and there were two phrases that jumped out at me and that's what I will finish with.

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.

Man's inhumanity to man from one who survived it.

As Mr. Wiesel notes in the introduction of his book, words can not--do not--describe what it was like--must have been like--to endure man's inhumanity to man. We in this day and time can't imagine, can't begin to fathom, what Mr. Wiesel's words try to describe.

The Holocaust, combined with the Russian Army's treatment of German women and with Japanese treatment of the Chinese surely must mark one of the darkest, most despicable times of man upon the earth.

Where, in deed, was God?

Yet, because we are still here--the Director did not come on stage and stop the play to use C.S. Lewis' imagery--there is still hope. God has not yet given up on man, but sometimes we wonder--at times like Mr. Wiesel describes--why He hasn't. He must see something, some possibility in man that we don't always see ourselves--and sometimes try very hard to hide and overcome.

Mr. Wiesel's Nobel Prize acceptance, coming as it does, at the end of the book, is one of the most powerful statements ever made about man's responsibility--about our individual responsibility--to stand up for those who need our help and support.

Abraham Lincoln may have said it best in his Gettysburg Address, "...That these dead have not died in vain...."

Mr. Wiesel's work speaks powerfully toward that end.

This novel to me portrays the absolute depravity and madness that humanity can fall into. The beginning superbly portrays the false hope that many people had that this situation would just blow over until it was too late despite the warnings from many people that it was just beginning. The language is so heart-rending and drips with rhetoric and deep meaning that sears the soul. The authors portrayal of his loss of faith and soul is so beautiful and yet so devastating in it's simple clarity that I felt I was there with him losing my mind. The deaths of those around him and the way he explains it makes me feel like their deaths weren't in vain and are left unsullied by his beautiful words. There is only one thing I would wish for this novel and that would be for it to be longer...I was left wanting to hear more about what happened.

I liked this book but its sad. I got this book because I like history and wanted to know more about what happened in WWII.

I've never read such a short book with such a huge impact. When I read this as part of a college class, we learned that it was originally some 600 pages long. Then the author decided to cut it down to the absolute bare bones - and it worked brilliantly.

Too much writing could cushion the devastation - getting bogged down in details could allow a reader to become jaded. However, such stark minimalism forces a reader to think about what is being said. And significantly, Wiesel doesn't describe every horror. He leads us to the brink, and lets the reader imagine the next step. Rather like watching a horror movie and seeing a character walk into the dark without seeing what happens to them. Just as many Jewish families had to do during this time, when loved ones were taken away never to return. The intentionally large gaps between some of the paragraphs faithfully evoke the silence the author needs to convey so a reader must contemplate what has passed.

Much like "The Color Purple" evoked the reality of blacks in that time with the deceptively simple diary of one young black woman, "Night" reveals the tangible horror the Jews faced around WWII from the eyes of a Jewish boy. I have seen the film version of The Color Purple, and also Schindler's List. Both are strong films, but they lack the power of this simple narrative. The best book I have ever read about the tragedy of the Holocaust.

I thought this was a well written memoir and as hard as it was to read it is something that should be read by every living person. We need to step up and not allow this to happen in any country and it is so sad to see it happening everywhere. When will we learn our lessons?

This was one bound volume of Wiesel's first three books, which concern the Holocaust, survival, and humanity. Night is Wiesel's personal memoir, which relates his personal story before and during World War II, as he and his father are separated from his mother and sister and interned in a series of concentration camps. Dawn is the story of a member of the movement to free Palestine from British occupation and Day concerns how one could move from a past that consumes one's every thought (or even if one should).

Quote: "Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

I read Night in high school, and always think of it as being a particularly long book, which it is not. Wiesel manages to pack more than I would think possible into a little over a hundred pages, which relates the story of himself and his family during the Holocaust. It is a beautifully written work that relates a terrible story. I found the story of Wiesel's loss of faith and the relationship he had with his father particularly memorable. If you somehow missed this in high school, pick it up, if you didn't, find it again. It's worth it. Dawn and Day are not as catching as the first work, but are still interesting in their own way.

This was one of the most moving book(s) I have ever read. Everyone should read this at some point in their lives

Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, for his tireless work in addressing the Holocaust, wrestling with its almost incomprehensible moral questions, and most importantly working to ensure that it never happens again. NIGHT, his memoir of his own experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, was perhaps the earliest first-hand account to be widely published. Totally authentic, written in blood and tears, it quite defies criticism. To assign four, five, or even ten stars to it would be an obscenity.

And yet Wiesel followed NIGHT by two very short fictional works, novellas rather than novels, called DAWN and DAY. Clearly he wanted to explore issues that could not be addressed in a factual memoir. And these two later books are fascinating in showing Wiesel's first steps as a novelist, rapidly gaining confidence and skill. In this respect alone, I feel that criticism is indeed germane.

We all know the advice to writers: show, don't tell. You can see Wiesel encountering the issue even in NIGHT, which is a mixture of simply reported facts and personal reflection. When he is simply telling his own story, the facts stand by themselves, and even at this date reveal aspects of the Holocaust that I did not understand: for example, why the Jewish communities did not move more proactively to resist their fate, and details of the social interactions among the camp inmates themselves. Occasionally the personal reflections get in the way of relating events, and yet how else is the author to tackle his loss of faith and feelings of guilt which seem to have been a heavier burden than any physical indignities? Wiesel's answer was to turn to fiction.

In his preface to DAWN, Wiesel makes it clear that the protagonist, Elisha, is not the author himself, although he admits that it easily might have been, had he been sent to Palestine rather than France after his liberation from Buchenwald. The fictional Elisha is recruited by freedom fighters trying to oust the British and form the state of Israel. After taking part in several guerilla actions, he is ordered to execute a hostage, a British army captain, in reprisal for the hanging of a Jew. The whole of this slim volume takes place in the night before the execution, and poses the question of whether a man who has escaped the hands of killers can ever be justified in becoming a killer himself. The theme is clearly important, and once more topical, but I cannot say that it works as a novel. The fictional background is sketchy and seems constructed with the sole purpose of presenting this dilemma. A large section of the book is devoted to Elisha's dialogue with ghosts from this past, which further diminishes reality. After a few pages, Wiesel stops showing Elisha through his deeds and social interactions, and concentrates instead on the moral dilemma in his soul; in novelistic terms, the result is to reduce rather than enhance the character's humanity. The book thus comes over less as a novel than as a parable.

DAY (originally published in English as THE ACCIDENT), Wiesel's second attempt at writing a fictional sequel to NIGHT is altogether more successful. This is partly because its theme is less absolute and more subtle: the difficulty of returning to a full loving life for somebody who has lived so long in the realm of death. His quasi-autobiographical protagonist (Eliezer, but the name is mentioned only once) is a rounded character with much depth. The book follows him as he recovers in a New York hospital from a near-fatal encounter with a taxicab. Although we still hear his inner thoughts, his situation is shown primarily in terms of his very real relationships with others, particularly his lover Kathleen. He has clearly led a varied and somewhat successful life in the dozen years since his liberation, but, though no longer a loner in practical matters, he still retains a huge void in his heart. Wiesel introduces quite a lot of psychological suspense, and has the wisdom not to make the ending too facile; if there is healing to come, it will still be a long process.

I have not (yet) read any of Elie Wiesel's later novels. Judging by the speed with which he ascends the learning-curve as a fiction writer here, I would expect them to be increasingly filled out in human terms -- perhaps even to the point where his Nobel Prize might have awarded as much for Literature as for Peace?

I was given the first two stories of the trilogy to read in my Nazi Germany and the Holocaust class this year and found them to be excellently written and very meaningful. With the help of an excellent teacher who posed all the right questions I was allowed to see the full meaning of these two stories.

I wasn't able to read the Accident, as my teacher chose for us to read the Sunflower by Simon Weinsenthal instead, although I do hope to someday.

Night and Dawn are two great stories which should be read by all.