I have read this many, many times. Each time, I am newly astonished by the simple power of this slim volume. It may be the finest book every written on the Holocaust because it distills the complexities of a mind-wrenching event down to its most basic element – the personal pain of one human being. Stunning. ( )

Night is a short volume, only 112 pages of story, which, for the few of you who don’t know, describes Wiesel’s experience as a teenager in Transylvania in the Second World War, a Jew in a small, very devoutly religious Jewish community where he, the son of a well-educated storekeeper, was devoting his life to his religious studies.

The community is tightly knit and, you get the impression, quite insulated from the outside world; the war is a faraway thing, even when the foreign Jews are rounded up and deported from the town. One of them, Wiesel’s friend Moishe the Beadle, returns to warn the town of the danger of the Nazis, but nobody listens. By this time it is 1944, and the community is sure that the war will soon be over and they will be safe.

Inevitably, the German army arrives and the restrictions begin, then the displacement of the Jews from one ghetto to another. And yet still the community is optimistic. Looking at these scenes with historical hindsight made me want to scream alongside Moishe the Beadle – how could these people be so unaware? And yet it’s human nature to hope…

Of course they are transported to the camps. And of course what follows is a nightmare of separation, deprivation, starvation and brutality. Wiesel reports it all so simply; there’s an almost flat, unemotional quality to his writing that makes it quite possible to read unemotionally, even at the poignant moment when he watches his mother and younger sister walk away in the opposite direction, never to be seen again.

The aspect of this book that most deeply impressed me was the devotion of the Jews to God, even as they wondered where He was in all this horror. Even Wiesel, who professes to turn his back on a God who would let such things happen, constantly refers to Him even as he denies Him. There's much to be learned from the people in this book.

Wiesel sketches the brutalities he suffered and saw very sparely, without much detail. What he tells is enough. He moves the reader swiftly from day to day, week to week as the inmates are moved farther away from the liberating Allies. Then suddenly the narrative slows down to encompass the death of Wiesel’s father, and you can truly feel the numbness of the brutalized teenage boy who is barely able to feel compassion through his hunger. It’s powerful stuff. Then the story moves swiftly again, through the liberation of the camps, and ends with Wiesel looking at himself in a mirror – the face of a corpse. “The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.” Was this the first time he envisaged writing a story that had himself as its main character?

What can you say to such memories? I feel as if I’m writing a summary rather than a review, because the only possible response to this story is respect. Yet the writing has much to commend it – this edition is a new translation by Wiesel’s wife, and the writing is clear, simple, direct and immediate. I give this book the “life-changing” tag simply because it is a familiar horror story seen from the inside. Survivors of such events are rarely able to speak of them, so it is a privilege to listen to a man who did not spare himself from the task of writing his story.

It was EXTREMELY well written but very sad. ( )

From the horror stories of Auschwitz to the portrayal of hardships, “Night” by Elie Wiesel tells words that many pictures cannot. His in depth writing can shatter you into tears and instantly have you contemplating on what life was like for a Jew. This book shows the importance of family. As he was brought to Auschwitz the imaged portrayed by him come to life as you can feel the fear of him losing his father. Religion is seen as he questions why the Jews are chosen yet can be massacred like this. The combination of all factors in this book is not only informative, yet it touches the heart as well. This is a must read to anyone especially whoever wants to learn about the holocaust not from a textbook. This book isn’t for the light hearted or light stomached. This is an action packed 109 pages of informative first person stories. ( )

Too much propaganda. This author has made a career of marketing and proselytizing the holocaust.