Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night pulls readers into the story of a young 15 year old as he journeys through the horrific stages of what he calls, the Kingdom of Night (118). Elie uses his story to argue that if “this conflagration [were] to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes” (21), exemplifying why people must be empathetic, tolerant, and aware of the world around them. Elie’s use of gruesome and emotional language in order to detail his expansive story of suffering creates a memoir perfect for high school students to use as a foundation for Holocaust education.
In order to prevent the world from forgetting the horrors of the Holocaust, students should read Wiesel’s memoir, which details the stages of the Holocaust to help readers understand the pain Jews went through during World War II. While other Holocaust memoirs share different—yet equally important stories— Elie faces situations that unfortunately lead him and the reader into a deeper, darker Kingdom of Night, setting his story apart from other less diverse Holocaust memoirs. When the war begins affecting life in Sighet, the Jewish community is too hopeful to realize what truly happens to them. This delusion keeps a multitude of families, including Elie’s, from escaping the horrors of the concentration camps, adding to Elie’s increasingly expansive story. Even when the Nazis place the Jews of Sighet into ghettos, they find a silver lining, but Elie sees through the optimism and realizes that “The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion” (12). Much later in the memoir, Elie and his father have to decide whether they will stay in the infirmary or evacuate with the majority of the prisoners: “For once. We could decide our fate for ourselves. To stay, both of us, in the infirmary” (82). Elie and his father have no way of knowing which is the better decision; Unfortunately, they decide to go, assuming the infirmary will be bombed once everyone evacuates. This choice leads Elie and his father to even worse suffering. Students need to learn about the Holocaust at large before delving into the specifics; Elie’s memoir offers a diverse yet detailed description of the differing stages of the Holocaust, producing a story that properly educates students on the subject as a whole.
Elie relays his story truthfully and describes his horrific scenes boldly, without holding back any gruesome details. While some people might believe that Night is too intense and inappropriate for high schoolers, Elie’s graphic descriptions are necessary for young students to grasp how truly awful the Holocaust was. Elie’s uninhibited story demonstrates his vulnerability; when they first arrive at Birkenau, inmates warn him of the tortures he will endure, saying “Over there will be your grave. You still don’t understand? You sons of bitches. Don’t you understand anything? You will be burned! Burned to a cinder! Turned into ashes!” (31). Elie is not embarrassed by the other Jews of Sighet’s naivety, and instead embraces his own vulnerability in order to share his honest experience, which encourages students to trust his story. When they arrive in their barracks at Gleiwitz, a mob of inmates tramples Elie: “I scratched, I fought for a breath of air. I tore at decaying flesh that did not respond. I could not free myself of that mass weighing down on my chest, Who knows? Was I struggling with a dead man?” (94). Elie’s writing style draws the reader in because he does not divulge the worst parts of his story in one short unembellished sentence. Instead, he creates anticipation and gives the reader time to formulate their own ideas regarding how a certain situation in the memoir might end. For example, instead of saying that Elie fought for his life with dead men, he uses the phrase “that mass weighing down on my chest” allowing the reader to decide what that “mass” might be for themselves. However, to keep the reader from coming up with their own false interpretations of the Holocaust, Elie uses the phrase “flesh that did not respond,” intentionally keeping the reader in the correct line of thinking. Elie’s use of language turns the memoir into an educational piece of literature allowing students to actively engage with the text to deepen their understanding of Elie’s story, as well as, the Holocaust as a whole.
While the horrors of the Holocaust are truly incomprehensible, Elie’s use of emotional language effectively makes the reader feel connected to Elie on a personal level. Elie’s emotional side starts to reveal itself when they first arrived at Birkenau. Elie realizes “this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever” (29). The heart wrenching prospect of never seeing ones family again makes the reader empathize with Elie, thinking about what they would do or how they would feel if they were in a similar situation. By relating parts of the memoir to their own personal lives, the reader gains a sense of compassion and sympathy for Elie. As the memoir progresses, the reader’s desire to reach out to and comfort Elie becomes stronger. Elie nearly surrenders to death multiple times in the memoir: “I saw myself in every stiffened corpse. Soon I wouldn't even be seeing them anymore; I would be one of them. A matter of hours” (89). Elie’s writing style evokes a distressed feeling in the reader because they are incapable of helping. His emotional language engages high school students by teaching in a way that ignites the reader’s emotions. High school students tend to be emotionally unsettled, so Elie uses this to his advantage and picks at the heartstrings of his readers to gain a higher level of engagement, resulting in students who not only want to learn more about the Holocaust, but also have a greater respect for the concept of never forgetting it. Elie uses Night to educate the “unseeing eyes” (21) who do not understand the gravity of the Holocaust, and to make sure that the future does not forget the six million who lost their lives. It is vital that all high school students read Night as a prerequisite before learning about the Holocaust in a more specific way because not only does it cover the necessary foundational knowledge that everyone should know about the Holocaust, but it also gives students an emotional attachment to the Holocaust. Furthermore, it conveys the horrors of the Holocaust through graphic language that guides students toward a more developed comprehension of the Holocaust. Elie’s emotional vulnerability throughout the memoir enables students to feel just a small fraction of the oppression that the victims felt by relating their lives to and creating a personal connection with Elie as another human being. Not only do high school students gain invaluable information about how horrible our past is, but they gain a sense of responsibility. Elie argues that the worst outcome of the Holocaust is forgetting; by reading this book high school students inherit Elie’s will to pass on the world's history of intolerance and hatred to the younger generations, and to radiate unprejudiced, accepting, and compassionate thoughts in to the world, rather than hate.