Night is a memoir by Elie Wiesel, telling the story of his time as a Jewish teenager in Nazi Concentration Camps during the holocaust. Aside from the physical punishments and torture he was subject to, the author describes the conflicts he had within, such as losing his faith in God, his father, and humanity as a whole. He originally wrote the manuscript about ten years after the war had ended, the finished product being somewhere around 900 pages, written in Yiddish. In 1958 the French translated, 178 page version was published as La Nuit, followed by the English version, which is the celebrated version you might buy in a bookstore today. Wiesel wanted to share his experiences of pain, his conflicts with his faith, and his gradual loss of hope. Through great detail he describes his transformation as a God-fearing Jewish teen to a faithless and hopeless prisoner, through the hellish treatment by the Nazis. Through simple language and disturbing, but clear visuals, …show more content…
The atrocities committed during that time are some of the worst throughout history, and this first-hand account of events, specifically in infamous camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, gives people insight to what happened physically and mentally to those involved. However there is some discrepancy on how much of the story is fact based on events that actually happened to the author and how much is creative liberty. Wiesel claims that every part is indeed the truth, but scholars such as Thomas A. Idinopulos believe that the “writings are not contributions to the historical and psychological study of the death camps.” Indinopulos thinks the religious aspect takes away from the actual decay of men that could have been portrayed, because Wiesel, was centered on the deterioration of his religion rather than his psych. Despite those who doubt the legitimacy, Night is widely accepted as a memoir, detailing real