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Denia Chandra
Ms. Debbie
10A English Language & Literature
16 December 2014
Reminding People About The Holocaust

The book Night is one of the books that talk about the Holocaust during World War II.
However Night is different from other books as it is written base on Elie Wiesels, the writer
of the book, own experience when he was taken at a young age with his family to go into
concentration camps. It took him 10 years to finally write his experience during the
Holocaust because it was hard for him to come up with the proper words, memories, and
silence in making the book. All of his hard work was paid off when he won the Noble Peace
Prize for the book. In celebration of his success, he wrote a speech and a particular quote
from his speech, which is I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget,
we are guilty, we are we are accomplices, where he talked about how one of his main
objectives when writing this book is so that the Holocaust is not forgotten by the society.
As mentioned before, the quote taken from Elie Wiesels Noble Peace price speech,
talks about how he doesnt want the Holocaust to be forgotten. He mentioned how he has
made an effort to remind everyone that the Holocaust exists. By writing this book, he wants
the event to not only be remembered by those who already knew, but also can give new
information to those who didnt know so that the history of the Holocaust will forever remain
in the society. As Elie mentioned in a speech called A God Who Remembers, without
memories, there will be no culture, no civilization, and no future. Elie believes that if we
forget about the Holocaust, it means we are helping the Germans in covering the cruel truth.
We will be helping the Germans, who are ashamed of their past during the Holocaust, to

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cover the truth and be forgotten in the society. This would just be unfair towards the Jews and
also other victims of the Holocaust who were mostly innocent. Now after they die, they dont
get the proper amount of respect for what has happened to them, and would just die in vain.
This quote relates to the novel because it is the main objective of the book. The
purpose of releasing the book is so that the Holocaust will be remembered even years after it
ended. The quote talks about how Elie give all his effort to remind and tell other people about
the Holocaust, and through this book, Elie hopes that the memory of the Holocaust will help
build a culture and society, and to those who died, they will not die in vain and be forgotten.
Besides to the novel, the quote also relates to myself because without this book, or
Elie having to finally decide to write the book, I wouldnt know about the Holocaust. If the
survivors of the Holocaust didnt speak up about their painful experience, there would be less
people who know about the Holocaust. Mainly there werent many reports about this in
medias is because the Germans tried to hide it, but as the victims start speaking, the truth will
be exposed because they are the witnesses. Without this book, I wouldnt know how cruel the
prisoners were treated, for example, in the internet we can find how the prisoners were hung
to death, but in the book we get a more detailed explanation such as in page 65, when Elie
described about the kid who was still hanging because he was too light, and stay in the state
where hes close to death but yet still alive.
Another connection from this quote is to the world today. This is because like the
Holocaust, there have been other tragic events that occurred in the 1900s. Those tragic events
were also not popular among the society because the criminals are trying to hide it as well.
Like the Rwandan Genocide, it was not famous among people, but turns out the genocide
killed thousands of people because of the different privileges given in the community towards
the two parties involved in the genocide. Unfortunately, these happenings are still going on

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until today, crimes that are caused by racism is still a very concerning issue that has not been
resolved.
Memories are crucial for our society, future, and civilization. Without memories, we
cannot learn from our past and become a better person. If we decide to just forget about
something, it means that were guilty because we are running from our responsibilities. This
is one of the purposes of the book Night, as a memory of the Holocaust, so that the society
will always remember about this tragic event and let those who died will be remembered so
that they will not die in vain.

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Work Cited
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 1958.