Night Quotes

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

Analysis

Appearing in the third chapter, this is perhaps Night’s most famous passage. Breaking from the narrative of the continuous description, Eliezer tells the reader what exactly he has suffered and felt. What he witnesses is an unthinkable tragedy that not only scars him for life but also shakes the very foundation of his faith. The existential crisis that he is plunged into robs him of his desire to live, to have any hope in humanity. The reiteration of “never” in this passage emphasizes the severity of his trauma, hammering the fact that even if he lives a long time, this memory will remain indelible. The seven times cursed and seven times sealed is an allusion to the Jewish prayer of Unesenah Tokef recited on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the fast heralding the New Year), in which it is said that life and death are inscribed and sealed for the coming year. Individuals are either cursed with a tragic death or rewarded with a prosperous life. Seven is a recurring number in Jewish tradition, signifying something that is tenacious and irreversible.

“Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked…

For more than half an hour [the child in the noose] stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking:

“Where is God now?”

And I heard a voice within me answer him:

“Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows….”

Analysis

This passage at the end of chapter 4 is the final blow to Eliezer’s faith. When the young boy is hanged for the crime of collaborating against the Nazis, his horrific death is watched by the whole camp, which reduces quite a few into tears. The death of the boy signifies the death of Eliezer’s faith and the death of his innocence. Prior to the Nazi camp, Eliezer was a faithful Jew who when asked by Moishe the Beadle why he prayed was puzzled by the question. Praying to him had no reason; like he breathed and lived without questioning it. But since he entered the camp, he has repeatedly questioned the existence of God with the final blow delivered in this scene. God, just like the child, is now dead, helpless and powerless to save the Jews. This is reminiscent of Nietzsche’s famous statement, “God is dead,” which is a profound existential dilemma that has befallen the modern man who has been confronted with the trauma of war, the senseless deaths of millions, and the inability to control the events that they are thrown into.

The child hanging from the gallows is also symbolic of Christ hanging from the cross. Just like this innocent boy, Jesus, the Lamb of God, too was crucified despite his innocence.

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.

Analysis

This is the final passage in Night that reinforces how broken a shell a Holocaust victim is. The Nazi atrocities perished both the body and the mind. The body was so wrecked by hardship and hunger that what stares at Eliezer from the mirror is a corpse. The corpse metaphor also signifies the death of the soul in a man. This is now no more the man Eliezer used to be, but what is left of him. The corpse image reminds him how much he has suffered and how much of himself—his faith in God and mankind, his innocence, his father, his mother, his sister—has been destroyed in the camps. At the same time, he manages to separate himself from the corpse; what is left of him is another identity that can perhaps endure beyond the Holocaust. Night doesn’t include what happens to Eliezer after the war and ends on this dramatic note, thereby leaving a lasting impression of the Nazi horror and the tragic suffering of the Jews.

“Why do you pray?” he asked me, after a moment.

Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?

“I don’t know why,” I said, even more disturbed and ill at ease. “I don’t know why.”

(Moishe the Beadle and Elie Wiesel) (Chapter 1)

“I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”

(Moishe the Beadle) (Chapter 1)

“What can we expect? It’s war….”

(Elie Wiesel) (Chapter 1)

“The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don’t die of it.”

(Eliezer’s father) (Chapter 1)

“I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.”

(Elie Wiesel) (Chapter 4)

“Keep your anger and hatred for another day, for later on. The day will come, but not now.”

(Elie Wiesel) (Chapter 4)

His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily: “I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”

(Nameless inmate at the camp) (Chapter 5)

We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything—death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.

(Elie Wiesel) (Chapter 6)

And, in spite of myself, a prayer rose in my heart, to that God in whom I no longer believed. My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done.

(Elie Wiesel) (Chapter 6)

But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like-free at last!

(Elie Wiesel) (Chapter 8)