Olivia: The last time Elie Wiesel saw his own face was in the ghetto. The next time he looked in a mirror, after being liberated from a concentration camp, a corpse gazed back at him. Jackson: And that image... that look in the corpse's eyes, he said, never left him. It’s a haunting end to a story that is nothing but haunting. It’s one of those final lines in literature that just stays with you forever. Olivia: It really does. And it’s the culmination of the journey we’re discussing today from one of the most important books of the 20th century, Night by Elie Wiesel. Jackson: A book that is so foundational to understanding the Holocaust, yet so personal and raw. Olivia: Absolutely. And what's incredible is that Wiesel, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights work, was initially silent for ten years after his liberation. He felt that the words to describe the experience simply didn't exist, that language itself was inadequate for the task. Jackson: That silence, and then the decision to speak... that's really the core of what we're talking about today, isn't it? The responsibility of the witness. Olivia: Exactly. His entire life's work became about bearing witness. And the first thing Wiesel bears witness to in Night is something we all struggle to understand: denial.

Jackson: Right, the book starts in his hometown of Sighet, and there's this sense of normalcy, even as the world is falling apart. How does he explain that? Olivia: He does it through this incredibly tragic figure, Moishe the Beadle. Moishe is a poor, humble, and deeply spiritual man in the community. In 1942, he and all other foreign Jews are deported. Months later, he miraculously returns, wounded, and tells this horrific story. Jackson: What did he see? Olivia: He describes how the Gestapo took them to a forest in Galicia, forced them to dig their own graves—these massive trenches—and then systematically shot them. He even saw infants being thrown into the air and used as target practice for machine guns. Jackson: My god. And he comes back to warn everyone? Olivia: He comes back with only one purpose: to warn them. He pleads, "Jews, listen to me! That's all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!" But no one does. They think he's gone mad, or that he's just trying to get attention. They pity him, but they don't believe him. Jackson: But why didn't they listen? They knew him. Was it just blind optimism, or something deeper? Olivia: I think it's a mix of things. There were optimistic reports from the Russian Front. The idea of industrialized mass murder was so far beyond the realm of imagination that it seemed like a fantasy. It was easier to believe Moishe was crazy than to believe the world had gone that insane. Jackson: It's the human tendency to believe that things will be okay, that the worst-case scenario can't possibly happen to us. Olivia: Precisely. And the Nazis exploited this. When the German troops first arrive in Sighet, they're polite. They're billeted in Jewish homes, and one officer even brings a box of chocolates to his host. This small act reinforces the community's denial. They think, "See? They're not so bad." Jackson: That's chilling. It's a calculated deception. Olivia: It is. And then the decrees begin, slowly at first. Jews can't leave their homes for three days. Then they have to turn over all their valuables. Then, they must wear the yellow star. Jackson: And each step is a little more normal than the last. I remember that quote from Eliezer's father about the yellow star. Olivia: Yes. He says, "The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal…" It's this tragic, incremental normalization of the unthinkable. By the time they're forced into ghettos, some people are actually relieved. They think, "Finally, we can live among ourselves, without the hostile stares." The ghetto, Wiesel writes, was ruled not by German or Jew, but by delusion. Jackson: A delusion that is about to be shattered in the most brutal way possible. It’s a terrifying look at how quickly a society can unravel when it chooses to ignore the warnings. Olivia: And once that societal fabric is gone, what's left to be attacked is something even more personal, more internal.

Jackson: That makes sense. So their world is dismantled piece by piece. First their freedom, then their homes. But the book argues something even more profound was being destroyed: their faith. Olivia: Yes, and this is the philosophical heart of Night. Before the camps, young Eliezer is incredibly devout. He studies the Talmud by day and weeps over the destruction of the Temple by night. He wants to study Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, to get closer to God. His entire world is built on faith. Jackson: And Auschwitz is the force that demolishes that world. Olivia: Completely. The book is a chronicle of the death of his God. He sees the flames of the crematoria on his first night and says, "Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever." But the most powerful and devastating moment comes later. Jackson: You're talking about the hanging of the pipel. Olivia: Yes. The Oberkapo, a kind supervisor, is found to be hoarding weapons for a resistance movement. He's tortured and sent away, but his young assistant, his "pipel"—a boy with the face of a "sad-faced angel"—is publicly hanged along with two other prisoners. Jackson: A child. Olivia: A child. And because he's so light, his death isn't instantaneous. He hangs there, struggling between life and death for more than half an hour, in front of the thousands of prisoners who are forced to watch. Jackson: That is just... unimaginable. Olivia: And in that moment, a man behind Eliezer asks the question that hangs over the entire book: "For God's sake, where is God?" Jackson: Wow. And what is the answer? Olivia: Eliezer hears a voice within himself answer: "Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows." Jackson: What does that even mean? It's such a complex, terrifying thought. Is he saying God is dead? Or that God is suffering with them? Olivia: That's the question that has haunted readers and scholars for decades. And it's where the book's controversy about being a "memoir" versus a "literary work" comes in. Wiesel isn't just reporting facts; he's grappling with the biggest theological questions. The image of God hanging on the gallows is a profound, devastating metaphor for a faith that has been murdered by human cruelty. Jackson: So it’s a complete reversal. Later, during Rosh Hashanah, he doesn't pray. He says, "I was the accuser, God the accused." Olivia: Exactly. He feels stronger than God, because he has witnessed this and survived, while God has remained silent. He eats his bread on Yom Kippur, the day of fasting, as an act of protest. It's a total spiritual rebellion born from unimaginable pain. Jackson: A pain that doesn't just kill his faith, but seems to kill something inside him, too. Olivia: It does. And this spiritual death leads to the final, brutal test: physical survival at any cost. This is where the bonds of humanity, even family, are pushed to their breaking point.

Jackson: That's a terrifying transition. When faith is gone, what's left? Olivia: Only the animal instinct to survive. Wiesel shows this through a series of horrifying events in the book's final act. During the death march from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, as prisoners are running through the snow, he tells the story of Rabbi Eliahu. Jackson: I remember this. The Rabbi is a good man, beloved by everyone, and he's looking for his son. Olivia: Yes, he's frantic because he got separated from his son during the run. He asks Eliezer if he's seen him. Eliezer says no, but then he remembers. He remembers seeing the son running ahead, creating distance between himself and his slowing father. The son saw his father becoming a burden that might cost him his own life, and he chose to abandon him. Jackson: That's the ultimate dehumanization, isn't it? When the camp forces a son to see his father as a liability. Olivia: It is. And it terrifies Eliezer. He prays to a God he no longer believes in, "Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu's son has done." But the camp continues to test him. Jackson: Especially with his own father. Olivia: In Buchenwald, his father gets dysentery. He becomes weak, childlike. And Eliezer is torn. He shares his rations, but he admits to a moment of terrible shame when he thinks, "If only I could get rid of this dead weight." He's immediately horrified by the thought, but the thought was there. Jackson: The camp put it there. Olivia: Yes. The Blockälteste, the block supervisor, even tells him, "In this place, it is every man for himself... You cannot think of others. Not even your father... Each of us lives and dies alone." When his father is finally beaten by an SS officer and taken away in the night, Eliezer doesn't even cry. He admits that deep down, he felt a sense of relief: "Free at last!…" Jackson: And that guilt must have been its own kind of prison. Olivia: A lifelong one. Which brings us back to the beginning. After liberation, the prisoners' first act isn't revenge. It's not about finding family. It's about bread. They are just starving bodies. Three days later, Eliezer gets sick and almost dies. When he finally gets up and looks in the mirror, he doesn't recognize himself. He sees a corpse. Jackson: The boy who left Sighet was gone. The student of Kabbalah was gone. The son was gone. All that was left was a survivor who had seen the absolute bottom of humanity. Olivia: A survivor who would become a witness. That final image is the reason the book exists. He had to give that corpse a voice.

Jackson: So after all this, after this journey through absolute darkness, what is the ultimate message? Is it a book about hopelessness? Olivia: No, I think Wiesel would say it's the opposite. He wrote Night not to spread despair, but as an act of defiance against it. He famously said, "To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time." The book is a warning, a memorial, but it's also a profound act of love and remembrance. It forces us to look at what we are capable of, both the evil and the good. Jackson: It doesn't offer easy answers. It just presents the truth, no matter how unbearable. Olivia: And in doing so, it places a responsibility on us, the readers. In his Nobel Prize speech, Wiesel said he swore "never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation." Jackson: That's the key, isn't it? The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. Olivia: Exactly. Wiesel argues that neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. So the book leaves us with a question we have to answer every day: When we see injustice, do we look away, or do we bear witness? Jackson: It's a heavy question, and one that feels more relevant than ever. We'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Join the conversation on our social channels and let us know what this book means to you. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.