Sunday, March 15, 2009

#10: Night

Oh, my...what a powerful novel! Night, written by Eli Weisel, takes you to the concentration camps, the train rides, the complete brutality of the Holocaust.

As soon as I completed this novel, I began researching more about the author and discovered that Night is the first of a trilogy. Just added two more reads to my growing I-can't-wait-until-summer-gets here list! Maybe within these two novels, I will find the answers to my other questions.
  1. Was his faith in God really completely destroyed?
  2. What happened to him after that American airplane arrived? (I was so proud that it was an American plane!)

This novel is one that I will lead a discussion with my students following Spring Break...it is a journey that all should take, for this book should be a reminder to us all of two of the many comments made by Weisel that was so poignant...

Still, I told him that I could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the world would never tolerate such crimes...

What I do know is that there is "response" in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness, so close and yet so distant, "responsibility" is the key word.

May I do just even a small part, by encouraging the reading of this novel, by encouraging still a "response" in my students in the 21st Century that such horrific crimes against humans never occur again...then I think of the women in Africa...so, yes, we still have a great responsibility.

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