JB yells about YA books: Nacht

Friday, January 18, 2013

Nacht

I'm gonna puke. Photo by Steve Higgs

I just read Elie Wiesel's Night for the first time. I will now cry myself to sleep. The English edition is a brief read, and well worth the time. I have not read every published personal account of Holocaust survivors, but this ranks up there with Anne Frank's diary as a powerful first-hand account worthy being an introduction to the subject for YA readers. The dehumanizing effect of this text is (I hope) a new experience for these readers, and it will be a jolt. It's self-evident that every student should know about the Holocaust and its origins. Even this guy. But not to simply know of the depths of human evil and depravity, but to see the capability of our governments, and our collective responsibility to prevent similar outcomes. Whether you believe that this has happened, or that we're doing a lousy job, I don't care, because you're at least having the conversation.

What's most disturbing to me is the denial and magical thinking of the people in Wiesel's community at every step leading to their arrival at the camps, from believing that the war would end long before the Nazis would arrive in their community, to when they were confined to their homes, shuffled into ghettos, shaken down for their possessions of value, and herded onto the trains. From a socio-psychological point of view, this is morbidly fascinating and worth discussion with YA students in a language arts and/or social studies classroom. What inspired this line of thinking, and how would students react in a similar situation? What does it take to get them to act on their own?

There has been controversy over whether this is memoir, fiction, or both. The spine of the edition I own says autobiography. We know enough about what happened in the towns, in the ghettos, on the trains, in the camps, that even if some of these details are imagined, they're not incredibly far-fetched. I'm inclined to agree with the Syracuse faculty member, Karen Hall, who said, that the "literature of trauma" is invariably subjective: “For me, then, ‘Night’ is 100 percent true in its call to readers to remember the Holocaust, listen to and learn from its survivors, and never to allow such an event to take place again." Autobiographies and memoirs are inherently inaccurate, as banked memories fade or distort details, or are skewed by perspective. That should not lessen the impact of this book.* This leads to a more abstract discussion about truth, fiction, and the ramifications thereof, that concrete YA readers might not be able to grasp, but could work with a more sophisticated group.