30-Day Book Challenge: Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of this 30-day challenge. I will not go into detail again about the challenge. Here we go.

Day 02: Favorite Non-Fiction Book

For a while, I could not choose between this book and Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. I'm not a frequent non-fiction reader, but I adore both Night and Tuesdays with Morrie.

    I eventually chose Night because of its personal significance. While I thought Tuesdays with Morrie was a powerful, inspiring, well-written work, I did not feel substantial personal significance because my life has not yet been affected by Lou Gehrig's Disease. Night has a lot of personal meaning to me because my father and his family are all Jewish.

    Because my father married my Catholic mother, I have been raised as a Catholic. However, I know a fair amount about Judaism, and I have attended many temple services, including a Bar Mitzvah for my cousin. I have also celebrated Hanukkah and the Passover Seder with my Jewish relatives, so I am fairly acquainted with this religion.

    As far as I know, no one in my father's family was affected by the Holocaust. Nevertheless, it definitely has me thinking. My great-grandparents were lucky enough to move to America well before Hitler assumed power. If they hadn't, I think it would be very possible that they or my dad's parents could have died in the Holocaust. If such a thing had happened, I could very well not be here today.

    Personal significance aside, I also feel that Night was extremely well-written. Elie Wiesel is unflinchingly vivid in his descriptions of the things he suffered and the things others suffered. Before the Holocaust, he was one of four children, having three sisters. During the Holocaust, he lost his mother, his youngest sister, and his father; he witnessed his father's death, but not those of his mother and sister. He saw many get shot, as well as many hangings. After the hangings, Wiesel writes, the other prisoners were forced to walk up to the gallows and look at the dead faces.

    Concentration camps were surely Hell on Earth. I cannot begin to comprehend what the prisoners had to suffer, nor how anyone could have the strength to survive. It is so unreal.

    Night is my favorite non-fiction book because it is a very real account of a moment in history we'd just as soon forget. It is emotionally charged, powerful, and beautifully written by a man who went to Hell and back and lived to tell the tale.