Night by Elie Wiesel Reflection

Wiesel, E. (1958) Night. New York: Hill and Wang.

Night is the true account of a 14-year-old boy’s survival in the Nazi concentration camps. Wiesel was just a teenager when the Nazis forced him and his family from their home in Sighet, Transylvania in 1944. Not long after their evacuation, Wiesel and his father were separated from his mother and sisters. Wiesel writes of torturous beatings, starvation, death, betrayal, and surprising, survival out of the horror. The book leaves you physically sick with grief for so many innocent lives lost so long ago.

Night is an example of an authentic, but partial autobiography. The book chronicles several months in Wiesel’s teenage life, but gives factual information through eyewitness accounts and uses real conversations among the characters of the story. The book has a chronological structure as it documents the days, weeks, and months in the lives of Wiesel’s family from the time of their evacuation in 1944 until his rescue only in 1945.

This powerful book is a must-read for eleventh and twelfth grade high school students. The big question is: How do I determine if what I am reading is factual and to what degree is the information accurate? Using Common Core Standard, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.8 Evaluate an author’s premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information, students could read this text and research this time in our world’s history by finding primary sources of information to determine the book’s accuracy. Students need to learn to analyze, question, and challenge an author’s ideas to determine if what they’re reading is an accurate account of history.