Elie Wiesel's Night And Life Is Beautiful

Many accounts have been told about the Holocaust—truly a black mark on the history of mankind. Two that are good resources are Night and Life is Beautiful. Both are from the perspective of a young survivor and detail their experiences while living in their peaceful hometown and finally in concentration camps set up in Nazi occupied Europe. Night, by Elie Wiesel, begins when Elie is 12 years old. It covers the events he and his father went through trying to survive. They are forced to live in a ghetto and suffer hardships and deprivation for months before enduring a grueling weeks train trip with his family to a concentration camp in Europe. It was at this time that he was separated from his mother and siblings. He and his father were transferred to several other camps before being liberated by Allied troops near the end of the war. …show more content…
It is often difficult for modern high school students in this country to fully understand the Holocaust. We live in a world filled with instant communication and relative ease. It is commonly believed that innocent people will be treated fairly and not be mistreated without good cause. Such was not the case in the areas that fell under the iron hand of the Nazi regime, under Hitler’s rule. There, a person’s ethnic background could be all that separated an individual from life or death. Never having experienced true adversity, it is often difficult to relate to what happened in these two life stories. After reviewing both, Night is the best when teaching high school students about the Holocaust—it goes beyond the basics of what the average student knows, it emphasizes specific details, and graphically tells of unspeakable events that most do not