The holocaust is considered one of the worst tragedies in modern history. It claimed the lives of many people and it left a dark mark on the world’s history. Today, we remember the lives lost in many different ways. There are countless accounts written regarding life in concentration camps. Two of these accounts are Elie Wiesel’s Night and On the Bottom by Primo Levi. Both authors survived the atrocities of the holocaust and wrote their respective stories in order to bring to light the wrongs that human beings endured during the holocaust. Both authors set out with a purpose and, even though they both used different ways to convey that purpose, they both managed to write two magnificent pieces of work. Both of these works were written to display …show more content…
However, Wiesel and Levi had two very different ways of approaching the topic. Wiesel tells his story through the eyes of Eliezer (Wiesel). The amazing aspect of this whole story is that Eliezer is Wiesel himself. Wiesel decided to write his own story in the third person in order to find a new way to tell his story. As for the purpose of writing this book, Samantha Power, an American ambassador for the United Nations, states the following, “Survivors did not speak about their past even to their own children. Here in the United States, there were no memorials to the six million Jews who had been killed. It was against this wall of silence that Elie wrote.” (Weiland). Wiesel’s purpose was to provide people a true account of the horrid concentration camp conditions because there were not many accounts before. As for Primo Levi, he used a direct memoir in the first person in order to approach the topic of the holocaust (Levi). Even in the small excerpt in Elements of Literature, Levi’s incredible writing can be admired. In an interview in 1986, Levi said, “While I was in the camp the need to tell the story was so strong that I began to describe my experiences there… and yet I knew that I would not be able under any circumstances to hold onto those haphazardly scribbled notes. As soon as I returned to Italy, I felt compelled to write,” (Levi). Levi knew he had to write about his experience and so he kept notes so that he could provide the best information