Night

by Elie Wiesel

I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.

To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

“Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!” the Hungarian police were screaming. That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death.

NIGHT. No one was praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us. Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes.

Still, I told him that I could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the world would never tolerate such crimes … “The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria …” His voice broke.

NEVER SHALL I FORGET that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

We were withered trees in the heart of the desert.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Work makes you free. Auschwitz.

When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased them from paradise. When You were displeased by Noah’s generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your favor, You caused the heavens to rain down fire and damnation. But look at these men whom You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray before You! They praise Your name!

“I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”

Poor clowns, wider than tall, more dead than alive, poor creatures whose ghostly faces peeked out from layers of prisoner’s clothes!

But deep inside, I knew that to sleep meant to die. And something in me rebelled against that death. Death, which was settling in all around me, silently, gently. It would seize upon a sleeping person, steal into him and devour him bit by bit.

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.