"Night", by Elie Wiesel is an autobiographical account of a child's experience during World War II, more specifically, the Holocaust. The atrocities he witnessed as both an observer and victim are difficult, if not impossible, for me to fully understand. Intellectually I can create a picture in my mind with the graphic descriptions Wiesel used, but I can not begin to feel anything near to what a survivor surely does. In this essay I will attempt to answer two questions raised by Ronnie S. Landau in "The Nazi Holocaust"; one, "Why do the Jews appear to have offered so little resistance everywhere? (Is that even the right question?)", and second, "And, finally, a question that dominates Holocaust literature: is this catastrophe that overwhelmed the Jews of Europe an incomparably unique historical phenomenon, or is it a case within the category of genocide?".
As I sit in the comfort of my home with the freedom to do as I please, it is very easy for me to criticize the victims of the Holocaust for not rebelling against their captors. After the fact, it is easy to look at all of the components, and consider what could have been better ways of dealing with the Nazis. The fact of the matter is, that I have not experienced or witnessed anything that could be compared to what the victims of the Third Reich endured. Due to this fact, my opinion cannot be a heavily weighed one. As I read "Night", I was struck by the apparent lack of information the Jews had in respect to their families and others of the Jewish faith in regards to the war. There were references to labor camps and such, but there was an understandable disbelief the Jews had when listening to stories of torture and death. How could such a "cultured" world, Europe, be the culprit to such barbarities? It did not seem possible. Even when Moshe the Beadle returns to town, and tells stories of what he has seen and experienced, nobody is willing to listen or believe, only Elie listens, but still does not believe.