Last year I was asked to speak to a class of high school students at Elgin High School. They were all immigrants. They had graduated from ESL and were reading their first book. In any language. Not Cat in the Hat. Not Pat the Bunny. Not Goodnight Moon. Not Dick and Jane. Not Harry Potter. These young adults were reading Night. It was my job to provide some cultural context.
None of them had met a Jew. None of them had been in a synagogue. In preparation I reread the book. I had taught it decades ago to an 8th grade post-Bar Mitzvah class. I had read it myself in middle school.
Others have said this before. It is a powerful book. When others wanted to forget, Wiesel gave voice to the voiceless. When people wanted to deny the Holocaust ever happened, Wiesel made that impossible with his first hand account. When others wanted to whitewash the experience, Wiesel’s haunting description and simple language made it real.
When I wrote my review for Goodreads, I said, “I struggled with how many stars to give this slim, little book. It is the first Holocaust book I ever read. It is the one that I have taught to countless students and am teaching again this week. It is the most vivid. Most graphic. Most gruesome. And the most powerful. It has produced nightmares. And the most important. LIKE it. No. ENJOY it. No. Nonetheless, I am grateful that Eli Wiesel had the strength to write it.”
Together with Anne Frank, Simon Wiesenthal, and Victor Frankel, Wiesel made us confront the most difficult history and ask the most difficult questions. How can I possibly believe that people are basically good at heart? Why did the Holocaust happen? What meaning does life have? Should we forgive? Can I forgive? Where was G-d?
I was fortunate as an undergraduate leader at Tufts to attend a series of lectures at Boston University with Wiesel about diversity. One night we had dinner with Wiesel before his class. His dialogue sparkled. His eyes crinkled with laughter. I spent the evening watching him carefully. I wondered how a man who had been through so much could find any joy. How could anyone take pleasure in eating, in opening the door for someone else, in telling stories and jokes, in doing normal things? How did he find the courage to find his voice? I kept watching him for clues. I strained to hear every word. He spoke softly and his accent made it even more difficult to understand. I am not sure I do, still.
The students in the Elgin High School class were attentive, appreciative. What they lacked in cultural competence they understood with their own life experience. They understood each of the questions the book raised. Even as they didn’t have answers of their own.
Yet, they were puzzled. They, whose parents made a different difficult decision, couldn’t understand why Wiesel’s family didn’t leave. Why did they stay in what was at that moment Hungary? Why didn’t they escape? And they had heard the recent news. They asked other questions, ones I hadn’t anticipated and were not prepared to answer. They wanted to know whether Trump was really going to build a wall and deport all Mexicans. They could see the connections. They were looking to me for reassurance that what happened to Wiesel and his family was not going to happen to theirs.
We owe it to the memory of Wiesel and to the memories of the 6 million Jews, the memories of 13 million people that were systematically and methodically murdered that it never does. Not here in Elgin. Not here in America. Not anywhere. Never again. That is Wiesel’s legacy for all of us.
I was struck hard and greatly saddened that one of the main things these young adults talked in relation to Wiesel’s NIGHT was Donald Trump’s wall. We so often say NEVER AGAIN…. I wish I felt so confident.
We often say, “Out of the mouths of babes.” However, these students were not “babes,” and we’re basing their important question about Trump based on history and their own experiences. I, too, have seen the parallels. It is scary. We, as Jews, have always had an acute awareness- almost like a sixth sense.” We have had to be wary of antisemitism. What is happening in this year’s elections is scary. We must remember “never to forget,” and do what we can to make sure the atrocities in the 30’s and 40’s never happen again-to any group of people.