Night Page #10

"Night" is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, at the height of the Holocaust toward the end of the Second World War. In just over 100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own increasing disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of the parent–child relationship, as his father declines to a helpless state and Wiesel becomes his resentful teenage caregiver. "If only I could get rid of this dead weight ... Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever." In Night everything is inverted, every value destroyed. "Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends", a kapo tells him. "Everyone lives and dies for himself alone." Wiesel was 16 when Buchenwald was liberated by the United States Army in April 1945, too late for his father, who died after a beating while Wiesel lay silently

• Drama
• History

								


I knew nothing about them...Since 1940, my mother had not received a single letter from them. But I lied:  "Yes, my mother did hear from them. Reizel is fine. So are the children..."  He was weeping with joy. He would have liked to stay longer, to learn more details, to soak up the good news, but an SS was heading in our direction and he had to go, telling us that he would come back the next day.  The bell announced that we were dismissed. We went to fetch the evening meal: bread and margarine. I was terribly hungry and swallowed my ration on the spot. My father told me, "You mustn't eat all at once. Tomorrow is another d a y ... "  But seeing that his advice had come too late, and that there was nothing left of my ration, he didn't even start his own.  "Me, I'm not hungry," he said.  WE REMAINED IN AUSCHWITZ for three weeks. We had nothing to do. We slept a lot. In the afternoon and at night.  Our one goal was to avoid the transports, to stay here as long as possible. It wasn't difficult; it was enough never to sign up as a skilled worker. The unskilled were kept until the end.  At the start of the third week, our Blockälteste was removed; he was judged too humane. The new one was ferocious and his aides were veritable monsters. The good days were over. We began to wonder whether it wouldn't be better to let ourselves be chosen for the next transport.  Stein, our relative from Antwerp, continued to visit us and, from time to time, he would bring a half portion of bread:  "Here, this is for you, Eliezer." Every time he came, tears would roll down his icy cheeks. He would often say to my father: 

"Take care of your son. He is very weak, very dehydrated. Take care of yourselves, you must avoid selection. Eat! Anything, anytime. Eat all you can. The weak don't last very long around here..."  And he himself was so thin, so withered, so weak... "The only thing that keeps me alive," he kept saying, "is to know that Reizel and the little ones are still alive. Were it not for them, I would give up."  One evening, he came to see us, his face radiant. "A transport just arrived from Antwerp. I shall go to see them tomorrow. Surely they will have n e w s ... "  He left. We never saw him again. He had been given the news. The real news.  EVENINGS, AS WE LAY on our cots, we sometimes tried to sing a few Hasidic melodies. Akiba Drumer would break our hearts with his deep, grave voice.  Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.  Akiba Drumer said: "God is testing us. He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming our base instincts, of killing the Satan within ourselves. We have no right to despair. And if He punishes us mercilessly, it is a sign that He loves us that much m o r e ... "  Hersh Genud, well versed in Kabbalah, spoke of the end of the world and the coming of the Messiah.  From time to time, in the middle of all that talk, a thought crossed my mind: Where is Mother right now...and Tzipora... 

"Mother is still a young woman," my father once said. "She must be in a labor camp. And Tzipora, she is a big girl now. She too must be in a c a m p ... "  How we would have liked to believe that. We pretended, for what if one of us still did believe?  ALL THE SKILLED WORKERS had already been sent to other camps. Only about a hundred of us, simple laborers, were left.  "Today, it's your turn," announced the block secretary. "You are leaving with the next transport."  At ten o'clock, we were handed our daily ration of bread. A dozen or so SS surrounded us. At the gate, the sign proclaimed that work meant freedom. We were counted. And there we were, in the countryside, on a sunny road. In the sky, a few small white clouds.  We were walking slowly. The guards were in no hurry. We were glad of it. As we were passing through some of the villages, many Germans watched us, showing no surprise. No doubt they had seen quite a few of these processions...  On the way, we saw some young German girls. The guards began to tease them. The girls giggled. They allowed themselves to be kissed and tickled, bursting with laughter. They all were laughing, joking, and passing love notes to one another. At least, during all that time, we endured neither shouting nor blows.  After four hours, we arrived at the new camp: Buna. The iron gate closed behind us. 

THE CAMP looked as though it had been through an epidemic: empty and dead. Only a few "well-dressed" inmates were wandering between the blocks. Of course, we first had to pass through the showers. The head of the camp joined us there. He was a stocky man with big shoulders, the neck of a bull, thick lips, and curly hair. He gave an impression of kindness. From time to time, a smile would linger in his gray-blue eyes. Our convoy included a few tenand twelveyear-olds. The officer took an interest in them and gave orders to bring them food.  We were given new clothing and settled in two tents. We were to wait there until we could be incorporated into work Kommandos. Then we would be assigned to a block.  In the evening, the Kommandos returned from the work yards. Roll call. We began looking for people we knew, asking the "veterans" which work Kommandos were the best and which block one should try to enter. All the inmates agreed:  "Buna is a very good camp. One can hold one's own here. The most important thing is not to be assigned to the construction Kommando..."  As if we had a choice... Our tent leader was a German. An assassin's face, fleshy lips, hands resembling a wolf's paws. The camp's food had agreed with him; he could hardly move, he was so fat. Like the head of the camp, he liked children. Immediately after our arrival, he had bread brought for them, some soup and margarine. (In fact, this affection was not entirely altruistic; there existed here a veritable traffic of children among homosexuals, I learned later.) He told us:  "You will stay with me for three days in quarantine. Afterward, you will go to work. Tomorrow: medical checkup."  One of his aides—a tough-looking boy with shifty eyes—came over to me:  "Would you like to get into a good Kommando?" "Of course. But on one condition: I want to stay with my father."  "All right," he said. "I can arrange it. For a pittance: your shoes. I'll give you another pair."  I refused to give him my shoes. They were all I had left. "I'll also give you a ration of bread with some margarine..." He liked my shoes; I would not let him have them. Later, they were taken from me anyway. In exchange for nothing, that time.The medical checkup took place outside, early in the morning, before three doctors seated on a bench.  The first hardly examined me. He just asked: "Are you in good health?" Who would have dared to admit the opposite? On the other hand, the dentist seemed more conscientious: he asked me to open my mouth wide. In fact, he was not looking for decay but for gold teeth. Those who had gold in their mouths were listed  by their number. I did have a gold crown. The first three days went by quickly. On the fourth day, as we stood in front of our tent, the Kapos appeared. Each one began to choose the men he liked:  " Y o u ... y o u ... y o u ... " They pointed their fingers, the way one might choose cattle, or merchandise.  We followed our Kapo, a young man. He made us halt at the door of the first block, near the entrance to the camp. This was the orchestra's block. He motioned us inside. We were surprised; what had we to do with music?  The orchestra was playing a military march, always the same. Dozens of Kommandos were marching off, in step, to the work yards. The Kapos were beating the time:  "Left, right, left, right." SS officers, pen in hand, recorded the number of men leaving. The orchestra continued to play the same march until the last Kommando had passed. Then the conductor's baton stopped moving and the orchestra fell silent. The Kapo yelled:  "Fall in!" We fell into ranks of five, with the musicians. We left the camp without music but in step. We still had the march in our ears.  "Left, right, left, right!" We struck up conversations with our neighbors, the musicians. Almost all of them were Jews. Juliek, a Pole with eyeglasses and a cynical smile in a pale face. Louis, a native of Holland, a wellknown violinist. He complained that they would not let him play Beethoven; Jews were not allowed to play German music. Hans, the young man from Berlin, was full of wit. The foreman was a Pole: Franek, a former student in Warsaw.  Juliek explained to me, "We work in a warehouse of electrical materials, not far from here. The work is neither difficult nor dangerous. Only Idek, the Kapo, occasionally has fits of madness, and then you'd better stay out of his way."  "You are lucky, little fellow," said Hans, smiling. "You fell into a good Kommando..." Ten minutes later, we stood in front of the warehouse. A German employee, a civilian, the Meister, came to meet us. He paid as much attention to us as would a shopkeeper receiving a delivery of old rags.  Our comrades were right. The work was not difficult. Sitting on the ground, we counted bolts, bulbs, and various small electrical parts. The Kapo launched into a lengthy explanation of the importance of this work, warning us that anyone who proved to be lazy would be held accountable. My new comrades reassured me:  "Don't worry. He has to say this because of the Meister." There were many Polish civilians here and a few Frenchwomen as well. The women silently greeted the musicians with their eyes.  Franek, the foreman, assigned me to a corner: "Don't kill yourself. There's no hurry. But watch out. Don't let an SS catch you."  "Please, s i r ... I ' d like to be near my father." "All right. Your father will work here, next to you." We were lucky. Two boys came to join our group: Yossi and Tibi, two brothers from Czechoslovakia whose parents had been exterminated in Birkenau. They lived for each other, body and soul.  They quickly became my friends. Having once belonged to a Zionist youth organization, they knew countless Hebrew songs. And so we would sometimes hum melodies evoking the gentle waters of the Jordan River and the majestic sanctity of Jerusalem. We also spoke often about Palestine. Their parents, like mine, had not had the courage to sell everything and emigrate while there was still time. We decided that if we were allowed to live until the Liberation, we would not stay another day in Europe. We would board the first ship to Haifa.  Still lost in his Kabbalistic dreams, Akiba Drumer had discovered a verse from the Bible which, translated into numbers, made it possible for him to predict Redemption in the weeks to come.  WE HAD LEFT THE TENTS for the musicians' block. We now were entitled to a blanket, a washbowl, and a bar of soap. The Blockälteste was a German Jew.  It was good to have a Jew as your leader. His name was Alphonse. A young man with a startlingly wizened face. He was totally devoted to defending "his" block. Whenever he could, he would "organize" a cauldron of soup for the young, for the weak, for all those who dreamed more of an extra portion of food than of liberty.  ONE DAY, when we had just returned from the warehouse, I was summoned by the block secretary:  "A-7713?" "That's me." "After your meal, you'll go to see the dentist." " B u t ... I don't have a toothache..." "After your meal. Without fail." I went to the infirmary block. Some twenty prisoners were waiting in line at the entrance. It didn't take long to learn the reason for our summons: our gold teeth were to be extracted.  The dentist, a Jew from Czechoslovakia, had a face not unlike a death mask. When he opened his mouth, one had a ghastly vision of yellow, rotten teeth. Seated in the chair, I asked meekly: 
								Rate this book:4.0 / 1 vote