Night by Elie Wiesel

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I am going to start off by saying this novel was horrifying and real. As I stated in my Round House blog post, trauma deserves to feel real in a novel. Growing up, the main holocaust novel everyone had read or heard about was "The Diary of Anne Frank". That was the main novel taught along with the Holocaust lessons in high school history classes. The holocaust wasn't taught with as much depth as it deserves, in my opinion. I was taught with slideshows and pictures pulled from Google, I did not fully comprehend what people ACTUALLY went through until I read Anne Frank's story. Hearing the story from a first person's experience made this traumatic event hit me differently than it did by listening to a lecture. This novel hit me even differently than Anne Frank's story and I loved every emotional moment of it.
These days, many students aren't;t even learning about the Holocaust, we must rely on people's stories to keep this alive. I found a quote when I was googling Wiesel that really stuck with me, "As the events of the 1940s slip ever further away, they become harder to comprehend and imagine. In his foreword, Wiesel explains why he felt compelled to write Night, saying his "duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living". He has done more than most to keep alive their memory." 
I thoroughly appreciate his outlook on why this novel deserved to be written, the people who did not make it through that traumatic event deserve to have their story heard and remembered.
I would teach this novel as a history teacher, more so to a high school class. The maturity level of high school woud make the students appreciate this piece more and see the importance I believe.

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