Night

An Introduction

Food for Thought…

• Why do people read autobiographies?

• What is the difference between an autobiography, a memoir, and a historical novel?

Food for Thought…

• Mark Twain once said that the truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to be believable but truth does not– What the heck

does that mean?!

Historical Information• World War II:

– During World War ONE, Germany was defeated and left broken: unstable government, limited military, shattered industry, sinking economy

– Nazi party came to power in the late 1920s, and Hitler took over in 1933 – he talked of Germany’s national character and entitlement to greatness…and how the Jews were to blame for the poor state of Germany

Historical Information• Hitler’s treatment of the

Jews was more than a political strategy: he was an anti-Semite

• Hitler quickly began persecuting the Jewish “race”– Lost citizenship– Lost the right to work– Were barred from schools and

other public places– Could not marry non-Jews– Suffered frequent physical

attaks– Were imprisoned (30,000 by

1938)

Historical Information

• Hitler also persecuted Gypsies, people with disabilities, homosexuals, and those who disagreed with his political views (Communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet and Slavic prisoners of war)

Historical Information

• By the end of the war, six million Jews and five million non-Jews had been murdered

• Persecution:– Forced to live in ghettos

(enclosed areas within cities) where they often starved

– Executed– Sent to rapidly expanding

camp system

Historical Information

• Hitler began invading surrounding countries in 1938; France and England declared war in 1939; the United States entered the war in 1941

Night

“Through young Wiesel’s eyes, readers travel into the hell of

Hitler’s death camps and into the darkness of a long night in the

history of the human race.”

Setting

• Begins in 1941 in Sighet, Transylvania

• Takes the reader through Auschwitz and Buna (Poland) and Buchenwald (central Germany)

Elie Wiesel

• Was an intensely religious young man who spent much time studying sacred Jewish texts

• Was deported to a Nazi concentration camp in 1944, when he was 12 years old, where this faith was challenged

Elie Wiesel• Wrote Night ten years

after the end of the war• Inspired to break an

earlier vow of silence about the Holocaust and decided to tell his tale – to hold the world accountable

• Has made reconciling Nazi actions with Judaism has been a life-directing task

Night

“Never will I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all

eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my

soul and turned my dreams to dust.” – Elie Wiesel (in Night)

Elie Wiesel

• Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986

• Teaches humanities at Boston University

• Was instrumental in creating the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

• Has dedicated his life to speaking out against hatred, bigotry, and genocide

Night

“The works of Elie Wiesel ring out in protest against that absurdity and demand that people remember.”

“The only way to stop the next holocaust…is to remember the last one. If the Jews were singled out then, in the next one we are all the victims.” – Elie

Wiesel