`Night` by Elie Wiesel

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`Night` by Elie Wiesel

Larson : Firstly , as a reporter , it is my duty to congratulate you on your winning the Nobel Prize for such a small book of just 128 pages

Wiesel : It is a small book going by the its contents , it is the story of the four darkest years of the century which concerns the entire humanity

Larson : There are several books on World War II , and the Nazi cruelties What makes your book special

Wiesel : It is not for me to say that the book is special . Readers

have found something touching about the contents . But I do wish to say one thing . The book is not written by pen , but through the strong emotions of the heart

Larson : What was the special appeal about the contents of the book

Wiesel : The story of the intense human tragedy . Many of the readers of the book , who directly and indirectly suffered the consequences of World War II , must have recollected their missing mother , raped sister , God forbid , friends and relatives , blood stream , the flying pieces of human flesh and the stinking bodies etc

Larson : Now , coming to your individual suffering , what was the life like between the years 1941 to 1945

Wiesel : The expectation of death every moment ! The strong feeling that how God can run the affairs of human beings like this ? How , human beings , claiming to be sparks of divinity , behave in such a dastardly manner . How can they gas the babies , bayonet and kill them in the most heinous manner ? Why those who have the cross dangling on the neck , have no Christ in the heart

Larson : describe in detail about the concentration camps

Wiesel : It doesn 't need the intelligent vocabulary for the graphic . Horrid , horrid and more horrid ! As I and my father were shifted from camp to camp , we never thought we shall stay alive to reach the next camp . With every shifting , the number of internees diminished The style in which internees were butchered , are not even comparable to an animal slaughterhouse . Even the killing of animals has a purpose-to secure meat and protein for the appetite of human beings . Here the killings were purposeless . Without any previous enmity

Larson : Name the worst thing that happened to you

Wiesel : That I am still alive .the day we were separated from the rest of the family , mother and my dear sister , life was worst than death thereafter . We were a happy family

Larson : As a boy of 15 then , how did you absorb such grave shocks

Wiesel : My father beside was a great consolation . But for his presence I just do not know what would have happened to me . Perhaps I would have been a patient in the lunatic asylum

Larson : And what was the silver lining

Wiesel : The final liberation by the American troops

Larson : Did you ever have the ambition to become a writer

Wiesel : Never - nor did I have any opportunity or enthusiasm to write down the...