"Night" and "Man’s Search for Meaning"

Eliezer (Elie) Wiesel was born in September 30, 1928, is a Romanian-born Jewish-American professor and political activitist. He is an author of 57 books, including “Night”, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Bunchenwald concentration camps. Wiesel makes a distinction between the Holocaust victims’ control over their fate and their control over their actions. He believes man does have control over his moral choice, even when faced with the extreme circumstances of the Holocaust. Although he empathizes with the Jews who behave brutally, killing each other over crusts of bread in their fight to survive, he does not condone their behavior. At the same time, one senses that Eliezer, and Wiesel, feel there are definite limits to the victims’ control over their fate. It would be disrespectful to those who died for Eliezer - or Wiesel himself - to claim any credit for surving. For this reason, “Night” chronicles and emphasizes the set of lucky circumstances that led to the survival of one among many. The memoir is filled with bizarre coincidences. Years after the Holocaust, Eliezer randomly meets the woman who gave him comfort in Buna. In Gleiwitz, Eliezer once again meets Juliek. Eliezer’s teacher, Moshe the Beadle, somhow escapes the Nazis and returns to Sighet to convey to the town an unheeded warning. Perhaps the most bizarre coincidence of all is Eliezer ‘s survival. He is fortunate emough, on his arrival in Birkenau, to meet a man who tells him to lie about his age. Despite Eliezer’s small size, he does not succumb to cold or exhaustion and is not chosen in any of the sections, even though many who are healthier than he, are sent to the gas chambers. Viktor Frankl (26 March 1905 - 2 September 1997), was an Austrian neuologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaustsurvior. Frank was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form existential analysis, the “Third Viennese School of