This LibGuide is a general resource for English or history teachers interested in teaching the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel. The guide is appropriate for high school students. The information presented is specific to the book, and does not necessarily aim to be a full resource for the Holocaust in general. While there are warnings on sources containing graphic information/images, please use your professional judgement before incorporating any of these materials into the classroom curriculum.
“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night
Wiesel, E. (2006). Night. New York: Hill & Wang.
-- “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
-- “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 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.”
-- “For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.”
-- “One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.”
All quotes from Night:
Wiesel, E. (2006). Night. New York: Hill & Wang.