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Night - Elie Wiesel

The autobiographical book Night is about a young Jewish boy, Elie Wiesel, whose life was turned upside down due to the rise of Hitler, the Nazi Party's dream of religious and racial purity, and territorial expansion. When the German army entered Elie Wiesel's town in 1944, life for him and his family, and many others, changed forever. Before I read this book, I knew very little about the Holocaust. To be honest, I guess you could say that I really never even gave it much thought. After reading this book, it has made me very aware of what a wonderful life I have and that even if I lived in poverty my life would still be much better than it was for all those persecuted by Hitler and his Army.
I didn't realize that Jews weren't the only people killed during the Holocaust; Gypsies, the handicapped, gays, Jehovah's Witnesses and even Catholics were killed. I never knew to what extent that these people were tortured and killed. This book helped me to better understand what happened during the Holocaust. I know, however, that I can never fully understand it, because I was not a part of it.
One part of the book that moved me occurred when Elie arrived at the concentration camp and saw all the faces of the children burning in the crematory. I will never understand how the Nazis could put people, let alone children, into a crematory. When I read it I thought about how young and innocent all those children were who were tortured, beaten, and killed. Not only is it wrong to do that to children, but to any living thing. A very moving statement that was made stuck out in my mind; "Do you see that chimney over there? See it? Do you see those

flames? . . . That's your grave, over there." (Wiesel, 28). I can't even begin to imagine how the Jews must have felt, knowing that they could see their death. What's more they could smell the flesh of the other Jews being killed. These were the chimneys of the crematorium. Imagine being that...

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