2017 Reading Challenge discussion

Spring, 1944. "The weather was sublime". "The trees were in bloom", as they are now. Weather like this affirms my belief that I have figured out the world correctly, that most people behave predictably and responsibly, that ups and downs are balanced, that I am essentially sane. Elie Wiesel, age 15, seems to have developed just such an orderly world-view.

71 years ago, his world shattered in glorious weather just like this. He and his family had lived through most of World War II, tranquilly optimistic that Germany would go no farther than Budapest, and would leave his village in what is now Romania alone because it was too close to the Russian Front. And then, suddenly, German Army vehicles arrived and the structure of Wiesel's self-perception vanished.

Wiesel and his father survived together in concentration camps until late January, 1945, when Wiesel's father either died or was killed in the bunk underneath his at Buchenwald. Wiesel has lost all of his feelings of love, respect and responsibility for his father, and feels himself to be "free at last". It is this dissolution of his soul that leaves him numb. Any one of us who has loved parents or children would suffer agony for which tears would be a relief.

24 out of 50 / 52.