As Maxine and I discuss in Episode 12, I recently finished reading the banned book “Night” by Elie Wiesel. To be honest, it wasn’t a book I would have picked up by choice. The world is hard enough to deal with and I have enough anxiety and depression so I don’t usually willingly expose myself to even more depressing things. Yes, I know, it’s a cop out. There are hard things we need to know about and my desire to not think about the horrors of the Holocaust is a privilege the people who experienced it didn’t get.
But I recently joined a banned book club and it was the first book. So, I ordered my copy and was surprised to find that I tore through it in two evenings. I couldn’t put it down.
If you’re not familiar, “Night” recounts the horrific experiences Wiesel faced as a teenager in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. It was first published in 1956 and has become a seminal work taught in many high school English and history classes across the United States. However, in recent years it has faced bans and restrictions in many school districts, particularly in Florida.
Some Background on this Incredible Banned Book
Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 to a Jewish family in Sighet, Romania. In 1944, the entire Jewish population of Sighet, including 15-year-old Elie, his parents, and three sisters, were deported to Auschwitz. Elie ended up in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald until the camps were liberated in 1945. His parents and younger sister perished, but two of his sisters survived.
In 1956, Wiesel published the first version of his experiences in Yiddish, titled “Un di Velt Hot Geshvign” (“And the World Remained Silent”). It was shortened and translated to French as “La Nuit” and to English as “Night” in 1960. In the memoir, Wiesel describes being forced out of his home, the death marches, inhumane conditions in the camps, watching his father die, and his struggle to hold onto his faith in the face of unspeakable cruelty.
“Night” garnered Wiesel fame and recognition. He went on to write over 40 more books, including novels, memoir, and political advocacy pieces. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his activism against violence, repression, and racism. Wiesel passed away in 2016 at the age of 87.
As a firsthand account of the Holocaust from a teenager’s perspective, “Night” provides a powerful window into this period of history. Wiesel’s succinct and affecting writing style makes the memoir accessible to high school students. It brings history to life through the eyes of someone not much older than themselves. While Wiesel’s experiences were extraordinary, his reactions and emotions are universal – making “Night” a book that resonates across cultures and generations.
A Quick Overview of Events
In the beginning of the book, the Jews in Sighet hear the rumors of mass killings and deportations, but either don’t believe them, or assume it won’t come to them. Even when one of their own is deported, manages to escape the concentration camp in which he is imprisoned, and makes his way back to warn them of the atrocities, they brush it off.
In 1944 their town is occupied by German forces and Jewish families are forced into ghettoes. Even then – through the move into one ghetto and later into a second ghetto – even when they are told the trains are coming from them – even when they watch their neighbors board the trains – even then, they are somehow able to hold on to denial that it will happen to them.
Wiesel’s family is deported to Auschwitz in May 1944. He and his father are separated from his mother and sister, whom he never sees again. He describes, in detail, getting to the camp and seeing the horrible things that are happening (I will spare you the details, but let me tell you – they will never leave me).
Elie and his father, somehow manage to survive until the Germans decide to empty the camp because the Allied forces are getting too close. Although he has a horrible infection in his foot, and his father is close to death, they march miles toward their new camp. Along the way, his father finally succumbs to his illness and dies.
He is liberated shortly after, but no longer recognizes the person he sees in the mirror. I believe the word he uses to describe himself is “corpse.”
What “Night” Can Teach Us and Why We Must Pay Attention
This is a really basic synopsis of the book and I’m sure you’re not surprised at all by the “plot.” You really have to read it yourself to understand why it is a life changing read. There were many times that I found myself comforting myself by saying “it’s just a story” and then remembering that, no, this is in fact real. It gave me a bit of insight into how people who were living near to these camps were able to fool themselves into believing that they were not death camps. It doesn’t excuse their inaction, but it might explain it just a bit. And it is one reason why book banning (this book, in particularly) is a travesty.
What really, really got to me (besides the atrocities committed) was the fact that an entire town was able to fool themselves into believe that everything was going to be fine. First, the rumors of concentration camps weren’t true. Couldn’t be true. Then, they were too far away from the war to be affected by it. When the Germans came, they seemed ok. Nothing horrible was happening and life went on. Slowly, life got harder for them, but still, it wasn’t as bad as they feared. Then they were removed from their homes, but the ghetto wasn’t that bad. Then they were moved to a smaller ghetto – but still it wasn’t so bad. If this was the worst it got, they’d be fine. Then came the trains, and until the moment his family was put on a train they seemed to believe it might not happen. It wasn’t until they got to the camp that reality set in. That’s a long damn time to believe things were going to be fine, when they clearly were not.
I do not say that to shame anyone. I want to say I can’t imagine what I would do in their situation. Except that we’re all slowly moving toward that situation and I see us doing nothing.
- We have a former president who tried to subvert a legal election.
- People storming the capital building to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
- Laws being created to stop teachers from being safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth.
- One parent can challenge a book, effectively removing it from all classrooms in an entire school district.
- Art teachers can’t teach art history, because of nude paintings.
- We’re being warned that girls shouldn’t use period tracking apps, because the government may be able to use the information to keep trans kids from playing sports.
- And now there’s talk of forcing women to have pregnancy tests before leaving states where abortion is illegal, to make sure they aren’t leaving for an abortion.
Is “Night” Being Banned in Florida?
Well, sort of.
According to Claude.ai, “Night” has risen to the top of the list of banned books in Florida over the past year. In 2021, a school board in Sarasota County banned it from their curriculum citing inappropriate content for the age group. This spurred challenges in other Florida districts. By early 2022, “Night” was the most banned book in Florida among those cited for being “sexually explicit” or “concerning mature themes.”
I can’t find information to support everything in the above paragraph, but I will say that none of it would surprise me.
In 2021 Florida passed the Individual Freedom Act which gives parents a lot of power to decide which books should be made available to their children. The problem is that an objection by one parent effectively removes access to that book for ALL children in the school district. So, if one parent decides they don’t want their child to read “Night,” my kid can’t read it either (unless I buy it from Amazon, which I did). It’s a slippery slope from here to outright banning of books.
How Book Banning Leads to Fascism
You know what fascists hate? An informed electorate. How do we control what people know? We restrict access to what they can learn.
But, Millie, people won’t stand for being told what they’re allowed to learn! Maybe not if they realize that’s what’s happening. But politicians that tell white people that they’re not responsible for the past and they shouldn’t be made to feel bad about what other white people did are very popular. After all, my kid didn’t participate in slavery. Why should she feel bad about it?
Because that’s how we learn.
Laws that allow parents to “protect” their children from feeling upset are exactly how the government takes away your right to learn, with your blessing. And every a book is banned (or restricted) we come that much closer to losing our democracy. Because an uninformed electorate has no choice but to believe whatever the politicians tell them. And THAT is how democracy dies.
Imagine if this book (and other ways to teach the sins of Nazism) was banned in Germany because it made children “…feel guilt, anguish or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.” The world would be up in arms. Germany is actually protecting its democracy by making sure their citizens know how awful fascism was and what the effects were.
If you would like to read more about how book banning leads to fascism, there is a great article here.
If It’s Banned, We Should Read It
It’s hard to find a conclusive list of all the books that wannabe dictators are trying to take away (it’s almost like they don’t want us to have access to the information). But here are a few:
This one is from late 2023: https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/roughly-300-books-were-removed-from-libraries-in-florida-last-school-year-heres-the-full-list/3113184/
This one lists 623 books pulled from school libraries just in one county: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/12/20/read-it-yourself-all-673-books-removed-from-orange-classrooms/
And here’s a website dedicated to retaining our right to read in Florida: https://www.fftrp.org/
PLEASE read these books. Fight for your right to decide what information you and your children have access to. And please, read “Night.”
Yes, “Night” is upsetting. Yes, there are images I can’t get out of my head. And yes, I want my kids to read it (although getting them to read much of anything these days is a challenge, so I don’t see it happening unless a teach makes them). Do I want my children to have images of torture, dehumanization, and murder in their brains for the rest of their lives? Yes. I want my kids to know that these things happened and that, if we’re not careful, they could happen again. I don’t care if that knowledge scars them for life. If that’s what it takes for them to stand up to an injustice that could absolutely happen again, so be it.