Night is a remarkable document because it shows how much people can endure. It states the obvious to draw attention to the text's treatment of the Holocaust, but this is perhaps its greatest claim to our attention. There are countless books, articles, films and documentaries on the subject, but few are written by people who have suffered directly in such a way, and even fewer are animated by such terrible pain and understanding of what …showed first 75 words of 778 total…

…showed last 75 words of 778 total…fate of loved ones and many other things. When we note the separation of families, the mentions of the crematoria, the number of deaths on the trains, the way Elie's father dies finally, we see why the 'final solution' is considered almost certainly the greatest crime in human history. It was genocide, or mass murder on a scale so huge that it staggers the imagination. It is this which Wiesel captures with such bleak exactness.