03.11.09
Wiesel: Night
“Men to the left! Women to the right!”
Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion.
Eight short, simple words.
Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother…
and I did not know that in that place, at that moment,
I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever.
At last, I’ve read the immortal and heart-wrenching book of him that hath said “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel, might have escaped the holocaust but not its terrors, and in this personal record, he writes of the absolute evil that he has seen and experienced. It was tragic enough that what he went through made him lose his faith in humanity, what was even more tragic was that in his desperation as a young boy in an overwhelming situation, he was caused to lose his faith in God.
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night…Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.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.
François Mauriac (Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1952) who convinced Elie Wiesel to write this memoir remarks in the foreword that “for him [Wiesel], Nietzsche’s cry expressed an almost physical reality: God is dead.” Nevertheless, Mauriac concludes the foreword by saying, “All is grace. If the Eternal is the Eternal, the last word for each one of us belongs to Him. That is what I should have told this Jewish child. But I could only embrace him, weeping.”
Night is a slender book, but one of horrifying intensity, and seldom did I turn a page without shedding tears first.
¤ ¤ ¤
Coincidentally, Dandi was able to download Defiance. I’m not a movie person but since I first learned of this film through Gabi, and a week after that Joshua Bell e-mailed me (alright, alright, not Joshua Bell himself… but the people behind his newsletter) announcing that the violin solos in the soundtrack are performed by him, my curiosity was piqued.
¤ ¤ ¤
There’s really nothing the world can do about the Holocaust anymore,
but to immortalize the stories, and remember, and to learn from them.
.
mika said,
March 12, 2009 at 7:39 am
wow, what a tragic book. i can only imagine how i’d react in his place. i can only imagine what it was like to be there. i think this problem of pain and suffering (of which the holocaust is one of the most overwhelming examples) is really one of the biggest challenges to our faith. there’s no easy or settled answer to this problem. but i remember something yancey wrote. he said (and i’m paraphrasing) that disappointment with God is far worse than disappointment without God. the same thing could be said about pain and suffering, for without God, where will we find meaning in the pain? where will we find hope that the pain will end? ok, this is a long reply, haha
Miracle ♪♫ said,
March 13, 2009 at 9:05 am
Long replies are welcome here, Mika. =)
This is why Holocaust stories always touch and terrify me to the core. I think I would have difficulty going through it even if it were only a nightmare. Thanks for sharing Yancey’s insight. Even though “disappointment with God” is still a sign of weak faith, it is at least reassuring that one acknowledges His existence. It is ironic though that Biblically, the Jews suffered this fate due to faithlessness/disobedience. (Some of the older men in Wiesel’s account also acquiesced to this.) I can only hope earnestly that Elie Wiesel regained his faith fully afterwards.
gen said,
March 14, 2009 at 12:35 pm
hi mewa! have you read THE BOY IN STRIPED PYJAMAS? it’s one of the many holocaust stories. wala pa nako ni nabasa but i saw the film… makasakit ug kasingkasing uy!
Miracle ♪♫ said,
March 14, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Hi Gen! Hmmm… I didn’t even know about that book. I’ll try to look for that. Thanks ha. Another book about the Holocaust that remains to be one of my favorites is And the Violins Stopped Playing. I read it as a little girl and it’s effect on me has been with me since. Makasakit jud pud ug kasingkasing.