Night

I loved this book. It was the first one I read specifically because it is the author's memory from his time in the camps in Germany. I have been kind of obsessed with everything WWII since eighth grade when I learned about the Holocaust. It was completely awful, but I have a random fascination with it which sometimes makes me feel bad because of how sad, awful and wrong it all was. I can't even tell you how many times I've watched documentaries and movies about WWII and the Holocaust. This book was very well written and I thought it was an amazing insight on what the camps were actually like. I didn't know they gave the Jews coffee, soup and bread. To be honest, I had no idea what it was like besides what I had seen in movies like Schindler's List where Nazi's would look out their windows and randomly shoot people in the yard as they were walking through the camps. Wiesel describes how he and his father would trade rations of bread for things like a good bunk or tools. They would be counted every day, they worked every day, they made them run from place to place and if they were going to slow, they would be shot. It was terrifying to read about how they got so hungry that when they were being transferred in cattle cars, the Nazi soldiers threw a piece of bread into the car and men were literally killing each other over it and the Nazi's were using that as entertainment. It was disgusting and I still can't believe something so terrible ever happened. It must have been extremely difficult to relive all that Wiesel went through, but I'm sure so many people, like myself, appreciate it because there is no way we could ever imagine what it must have been like. It's a good reminder of why the history should never repeat itself. I think I would definitely want to teach this book at some point to high-schoolers. I would be interested to know their thoughts and feelings on a book that is the story of someone who went through something as terrible as the Holocaust.