Reflection On Night By Elie Wiesel

“So I was hiding out in the heap of dead bodies because in the last week when the crematoria didn’t function at all, the bodies were just building up higher and higher. So there I was at nighttime, in the daytime I was roaming around in the camp, and this is where I actually survived, January 27, I was one of the very first, Birkenau was one of the very first camps being liberated. This was my, my survival chance” – Bart Stern, Holocaust survivor. January 2015 marks the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps. The Holocaust was a German attempt to exterminate all Jews during World War II, but it was not until concentration camps were eliminated did the world see just how inhumane the Nazis were. Although there
It is estimated that 1.3 million Jews were held in Auschwitz and 1.1 million of them were brutally tortured and murdered before the camp’s liberation in 1945 (Seventieth Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz 1). One of Auschwitz’s survivors, Elie Wiesel, recalls his experience in the camp, “Death wrapped itself around me until I was stifled. It stuck to me. I felt that I could touch it. The idea of dying, of no longer being, began to fascinate me.” Even though Elie was liberated from Auschwitz when he was fifteen years old, the ghastly events still haunt him. Looking at himself in the mirror weeks after his liberation he states, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.” After reading Elie’s book, Night, I was completely blown away by the horrific conditions that he had described. My perspective of the Holocaust was transformed completely after I finished the book. I could not comprehend how human beings could be capable of something so horrendous, so egregious… so demonic. I still get chills when I ponder it. I often wonder how many more people could have been saved if the camps had been liberated just one day earlier, how much more suffering would have been prevented? These questions haunt my mind every time the subject of the Holocaust is
Besides all of the autobiographies, preserved camps, and photos; there are days set aside that specifically remember and pay tribute to what occurred in 1945, the liberation of the concentration camps. We remember horrific events like the Holocaust for two reasons, to show our respect, and to prevent the course of history from repeating itself, in other words, we remember the past for the sake of the future. If the Holocaust was in fact a made up event, we would have no reason to remember it or to study it in school. The reason schools expose students to tragedies such as the Holocaust is to make sure that the same mistakes are not made again. Had we been able to stop Hitler’s rise to power would the Holocaust have ever occurred? By learning from our past mistakes we are able to help prevent the same atrocities from occurring again in the future. Imagine how you would feel if you were put through years of physical pain, years of emotional stress, and years of unthinkable fear; never knowing if you were going to be alive at the end of the day. How would you feel if you tried to tell your story to someone just to get the response “That never happened,” or “You are