All people in the world learn about wars. We study the history of our country and the wars which were battled. But there is one war which was the most cruel and evil - the second world war. It was an example of the biggest degeneration of human psyche. The synonims of this war are: Holocaust and concentration camps. This was a tragedy which caused so many wounds that even after over 60 years they are still opened. Many of those tragic memories were written down in diarys and in memoirs. One of these is the book titled "Night" by Elie Wiesel.
The main character in this book is the author - Elie Wiesel. He was a Hungarian Jew and lived in a village called Sighnet till the 1941 when the German forces invaded the country. As we know one of the main doctrin of Nazism was that all Jewes should be exterminated. They were concidered as not human beings and they didn't deserved to live. In that purpose the death camps were established. The center of extermination was Poland as it was the largest Jewish population there. The Holocaust is the name for Jewes' extermination. It means burnt offering. So, after 1941 the author was taken to the concentration camp in Poland, to Aushwitz. It is concidered as the worst place where Jewes were staked into the fire. Miraculously, he and his father were taken by the Germans from Aushwitz to another camp called Buna in Buchenwald. He survived because the camp was liberated by Americans. We can't even imagine how traumatic must have been the childhood of the author who was fifteen years old when he was taken. The stay in a camp was everyday fight for life in a horryfing conditions. He maneged to survive because he was strong enough to work like a slave. Without food, clothes, and basic means the prisoners had to survive. They were starving and dying because of exhaustion. They had to work in terrible weather conditions. People looked like skeletors or like ghosts.
The excerpt of the book which became embeddedin my memory is the story of the six - year - old boy. He was also a prisoner of the camp. The boy was kept alive because he was chosen to be a servant of Dutch Oberkapo. He choose the boy because he looked like a little angel. He was sweet and innocent in that world of death. Unfortunately, the oberkapo was accused of crime. He was claimed to cooperate with the resistance. Later he was condemned to death and he was killed. The boy lost his master but he was not killed. The Germans thought that he may tell them more. He was tortured and finally killed. He was hanged in front of all prisoners. The tragedy was even bigger that he was such a beautiful child. He suffered very much as he was too light to tighten the noose. The prisoners were crying and they were asking where was God in thet moment? The answer was in that book, he was hanged on that gallows.
The book is all about sorrow and grief. It is hard to imagine that kind of experience. It is not strange that people who survived the concentration camp are not able to pray. They don't belive in God. They can only belive that they were left alone. Their faith is gone. The only thing thay still worship is the memory of all those people who were kicked around, starved, tortured and finally killed. Who was responsible for all what happened? I think that it is not enough to say Hitler or Germans. In my opinion we are responsible all the time for the death of so many people. The memory is a weapon against that kind of murder.
Holocaust was the massacre made on the eyes of all world. It was not a forest, jungle hidden deep in Africa. It all happened in Central Europe, in a small town called Oświęcim. It was all well planed. It is also the sign of how indefferent people became. It was time when darkness follen and the night seem to be never ending. For Elie Wiesel and for people like him, who survived the camp, the night is still enveloping their world. It is not possible to forget that kind of nightmare. The only way to help Elie Wiesel is to remember. Our memory of Holocaust and the Second World War is the only chance of avoiding this kind of tragedy. On the other hand there is always dawn after dusk.
