The cries of a madwoman on an Auschwitz-bound cattle car are just one of many portents shepherding doomed souls on their way to Nazi furnaces. In "Night", the first of three books in this collection, Elie Wiesel recounts his deportation to the death camps where the rest of his family perished. The tragic weight of his witness to this obscene cruelty burdens the reader with the fates of the inmates and his reflections on the meaning of evil. Wiesel questions his god and his faith. He sees sons kill fathers: "Meir. Meir, my boy! Don't you recognize me? I'm your father... you're hurting me... you're killing your father! I've got some bread... for you too... for you too..." (p.106), and becomes intimate with death.

In "Dawn", Wiesel has migrated to Palestine and faces the duty to execute a captured prisoner. His long night of contemplation and uncertainty exposes his preoccupation with killing and killers and again with death: "Death," Kalman, the grizzled master, told me, "is a being without arms or legs or mouth or head; it is all eyes. If ever you meet a creature with eyes everywhere, you can be sure that it is death." (p.140). It is a preoccupation to be squeezed only from one who has not fully lost his faith or his humanity. A beggar explains the face of the night: "Listen," he said, digging his fingers into my arm. "I'm going to teach you the art of distinguishing between day and night. Always look at a window, and failing that look into the eyes of a man. If you see a face, any face, then you can be sure that night has succeeded day. For, believe me, night has a face." (p.126) Fear, night, suffering, and evil are his companions, and he explores them constantly. "Being afraid is nothing. Fear is only a color, a backdrop, a landscape." (p.174).

Until, in "Day", he survives a terrible accident and is faced with his own complacent acceptance of mortality. He struggles with the urge to explain to his talented young doctor the futility of fighting against death, and reaches an epiphany when he understands the tragedy of splashing others with his suffering. "Suffering brings out the lowest, the most cowardly in man. There is a phase of suffering you reach beyond which you become a brute: beyond it you sell your soul - and worse, the souls of your friends - for a piece of bread, for some warmth, for a moment of oblivion, of sleep." (p.247).

These stories are powerful and frightening,. Death is an implacable enemy, but also a partner for life who never goes away and will always win in the end. Wiesel has stared at evil, his stories are wrenching.

This book should simply be read by everyone interested in Judiasm or the Holocaust. Just read it!

While Elie Wiesel's first book, "Night", recounts his experience in the concentration camps, his new anthology, "After the Darkness", gives a wider perspective on the Holocaust. This book serves as both a historical record of this dark period and as a memorial to the 6 million victims of the evil that went unchallenged for far too long.

The factual documentation is accented with Survivors' testimonials that were previously unpublished. Full-page photographs add an incredible dimension to the stories that makes them easier to comprehend. There are two photographs that particularly moved me. The first is of a woman hanging from her balcony, desperate to escape the Nazis who wait on the street to capture her. The second photograph is of four women smiling as they peel potatoes just a few feet from a long stretch of corpses. This photo lets me see the utter loss and indifference that Wiesel describes in his book, "Night".

"Night" let us see the horrors of the Holocaust through Wiesel's memory. "After the Darkness" shows us how the Holocaust slowly crept up on an innocent and unsuspecting world. The narratives demonstrate the devastation that the Nazi regime had on many different people, and the photographs will remain in our memories to enforce the adage, "Never forget."

This book is a great find that anyone would love if you like to read about historic events! I reccomend this book to anyone interested in history.

a powerful trip across the mind of a holocost surviver wandering the haunted and enchanted streets of the old city in search of a lost friend. rich with emotion and stunning prose, this narration tells the story of the beggars and madmen who gather at dusk in the shadow of history, allowing the narrator to question his very memories. this is a text which lies on your table demanding to be read again and again, revealing bits of its mystery.

Three new additions to Harold Bloom's 'Modern Critical Interpretations' ($36.95 each) series will reach high school into college levels, compiling critical articles from a variety of sources and offering the in-depth analysis students will need to assist on detailed reports of an author's single work. Joseph Heller's Catch 22 (0-7910-5927-8) provides articles which examine how the sane can survive under insane wartime circumstances; Elie Wiesel's Night (5924-3) gathers critical writings on his story of life in a Nazi concentration camp, and the focus on Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings (5665-1) considers the contents and impact of the three-volume epic fantasy. All include essays by notable critics who offer different interpretations and focus perfect for classroom discussion or essay pursuit.

As I wrote the index for this book, I'd find that I was wrapped up in the story so much that I was crying; I'd have to go back to re-read sections so I could index it. It's very disturbing, but very well written. I highly recommend it for all people, so we'll learn not to repeat these atrocities.

This clear and easy to understand biography of Elie Wiesel is aperfect introduction of Holocaust literature for kids. It's especiallyimportant since many of the survivors are passing away and there is always the looming threat of forgetting this crime against humanity. I would recommend this book for kids 10 and over -any discussion of the horrors might be a bit too extreme for any younger children. Elie's courage and joy de vivre are a lesson for everyone, not just the children.

The Forgotten explores both the holocaust experiences of the aging father, and his new horror of losing his memory. Both are intensely moving, whether seen through his own eyes, or those of his son struggling to fulfill a difficult obligation. Like all of Elie Wiesel's writings, this book stays with you and influences your own thinking on many topics. A sad story, unforgettable.

While this book focuses on one man's search for his family history, his examples could be of value to anyone who is considering beginning a research project. Mr. Kurzweil's joy of discovery is very compelling, and was probably a big reason why I got into the hobby myself.

There is plenty of practical advice on how to start, where to look for documentation, how to interview, etc. While the book lacks depth in some areas, it covers every important facet of Genealogical research, and provides a point to jump from in search for more information.

Once upon a weekend retreat at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, I became absorbed by Elie Wiesel's fascinatingly describing his Memory of Jewish holidays, the Talmudic literature, the Jewish Laws and stories of Abraham, Moses, Isaac and Jacob. At that point in my life after retiring as Prison Chaplain, I began to look at the lives of Jewish writers. I wished to grasp some of their pain, suffering and depths of Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Elie Wiesel had written much of those feelings in his "Night"; "Dawn" and "Souls on Fire."

While caught-up in writing about my Memories of serving as a Prison Chaplain, I wanted to choose a good Model. My first underlining began with Elie's wonderful quote from "Society and Solitude" by Emerson to begin his chapter, "The Stranger in the Bible." Then I looked back at the first chapter, "To Believe or not to Believe." There I read the habits of a Jewish mother as she teaches her children, a Talmudic Ledgend of Moses and Rabbi Akiba, other stories of other Rabbi's...I was really hooked!

After Elie's return to his birthplace of the little Jewish city of Sighet, revisiting sights of his boyhood, he arrives to that key chapter, "Making the Ghosts Speak!" He writes of his own "despair of humanity and God!" From his studies of history, philosophy, psychology, he realized his anger at the Germans. "How could they have counted Goethe and Bach as their own and at the same time massacred countless Jewish children?" Then he admits that he "was angry at God too, at the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! How could He have abandoned his people just at the moment when they needed Him?" His struggling led to his conclusion: "I am free to choose my suffering but not that of my fellow humans."

This small gem of Essays has that fearful power to prod around one's insides, revealing your own gut-wrenching memories! It surely has done that and much more for me in every reading! Don't miss it!
Retired Chap Fred W Hood