This is a memoir written by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. He shares his recollections - in the form of short stories - of watching Nazi Germany come in and change his way of life and the way it affected people around him. For example, in one chapter, a dinner guest at his father's home is talking angrily about how he felt that God had abandoned the Jews. In another chapter, Wiesel is on a bus in Tel Aviv and recognizes a man who was a barracks chief at Monovitz concentration camp."...you had jurisdiction over the life and death of hundreds of human beings who never dared watch as you ate the dishes prepared specifically for you. It was a sin, a crime of treason, to catch you unaware during one of your meals. And what about now? Tell me, do you eat well? With appetite?"
There was a lot of depth in this book - to be honest, I think some things might have been over my head (i.e. why Wiesel thought the dinner guest was the return of the prophet Elijah). But this book gave an interesting insight on the Holocaust - not with harsh and gory details, but by conveying the emotions that Wiesel must have endured.
No comments:
Post a Comment