One of my summer goals is to read ten books on my "100 greatest books of all time" list.
Today, I read Night by Elie Wiesel.
It is his first person account of his time spent at Auschwitz.
Over the years I have read a few books about the Holocaust. Some fiction, the Diary of Anne Frank...then this.
I expected to feel sad...who wouldn't, given the subject matter?
Instead, I felt hollow.
It was the same feeling I had when I visited Dachau- a concentration camp just outside of Munich, Germany.
I felt as if I were there again, as I read. In that cold, rainy, empty, dark place. Even 60 years of history had not taken the horrible feeling from that place.
The only passage that broke through the feeling of numbness which enveloped me, was when the author talked about his first night at the camp. When he saw children being thrown into a fire.
I felt sick. I imagined it was my precious James, or silly and sweet Elly, or anxious and warm hearted Jack-Jack. Or worst of all, sweet toddling little Katy, still a baby really.
Now that I've read it, I will cross it off my list.
And I don't think that I will read it again.
Lori Ann
Did you read the Book Thief yet???? I don't even know how to describe it- you get the perspective of how the Germans felt living during WWII- and yet it leaves you feeling hopeful at the end. READ IT!!!!
ReplyDeleteI will read it next!!
ReplyDeleteI SECOND THE BOOK THIEF RECOMMENDATION!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSorry for the shouting, but you really, really MUST read that one. I read Night a couple of years ago and haven't picked it up since, and I'm a huge rereader (I've read The Book Thief at least 3 times in two years; just another plug). But I doubt I will ever reread that one. It's not happy and it's not a feel-good book at all. I think it's something we need to know - the world cannot be allowed to forget the horror of those places, but there's only so much horror people can handle. Read The Book Thief. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love that book.