Night.

  I recently finished reading a book, entitled "Night", by a holocaust survivor named Elie Wiesel.  Mr. Wiesel is famous for his depiction of the holocaust as a young man.  In many cases the book is required reading in colleges and universities worldwide.  There are many remarkable themes in the book, but the one I wish to discuss, and one which I do not believe Mr. Wiesel meant to convey, was the one of self-delusion among the Hungarian Jewish population to which he belonged.  The Hungarian Jewish community to which Mr. Wiesel belonged, in the town of Sighet, was tucked away in a fairly remote region of Hungary (now the Romanian region of Transylvania), and the political situation at the high point of the Second World War allowed the Jews of this region to remain isolated from the horrors that surrounded them.  Then the political situation changed to their disadvantage.  Before long German soldiers arrived in their village.  At first, the German soldiers were polite and cordial, but it did not take long for the orders to arrive that all non-Hungarian (foreign) Jews were to be deported.  One day the order was given and the foreign Jews were rounded up, placed on trucks and taken away.  Reassurances were given that they would be taken to relocation camps and sent to work in factories.  That was a lie.  In fact, the trucks were driven by "Einsatzkommando", special purpose troops, who took the foreign Jews into the forest.  They were forced to dig trenches and then lined up in front of the trenches and machine-gunned to death.  Miraculously, one of them, a student of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, and a friend of Elie Wiesel's, survived after being shot in the leg.  The survivor managed to make it back to Mr. Wiesel's village to warn the Jewish community of what lay in store for them.  He went into the village and the Synagog and warned them.  One would think, in 1943, that this eyewitness account of mass murder of Jews would have caused the Jewish population to flee or fight or hide or go underground or....  but they didn't.  They didn't believe the survivor.  To believe him would have disrupted their relatively easy lives.  To believe him would have forced them to take action!  And they didn't want to.  They didn't want to leave their homes and their comfortable existence.  They were not prepared to arm themselves and resist.  So they chose not to believe him.  They simply ignored him, called him crazy.  This formerly happy, although decidedly different, Jewish man, became down-cast and outcast.
   One day in 1944, Mr. Wiesel's father, a prominent member of the village's Jewish community, was called to the Jewish council. They were informed the Germans had mandated that all Jews be moved into separate living areas, known as Ghettos.  A couple of different Ghettos were established in the village.  The one in which the Wiesel family was establish in the Jewish neighborhood in which they already resided.  They were able to stay in their house, but many friends and relatives had to move in with them, since they were now homeless.  The Jewish Ghettos of numerous European cities had already been "liquidated", but still, no one believed the survivor.  He stood in the Synagog and on the streets and warned them repeatedly.  No one listened.  Jews were forced to wear the now famous yellow stars on their clothes, proclaiming their Jewishness to the world and for their enemies to see.  They complied.  Some even embraced it, after all, there was no shame in being a Jew.  They didn't see the deeper meaning, the separation, the demeaning of their heritage and their persons.  At least, they chose not to see it.  They were now separated. Marked.  No Jews were allowed to travel outside the Ghetto without a pass.  Still, the Jews of Sighet refused to believe they were being set up for annihilation.  To believe that would have been too disturbing.  To believe it would have caused them to take action.  Instead, they believed that it was good to be together in the same neighborhood.  After all, here they were together. No one bothered them.  They had their own Jewish police force.  They were able to maintain their traditions and being separate was not all bad.  The Germans were seldom in the Ghetto.  The Jewish Counsel represented them.  Slowly, their freedoms eroded.  They were no longer allowed to own and run businesses.  They began to stash away their riches, to bury them in basements and open lots, lest the Germans seize them.  Jews were no longer allowed to own expensive items.  They had to be turned over.  Wealth was hidden away.  Family heirlooms were sacrificed to satisfy the demands of the increasingly demanding government.  Food was less available.  Barter and black market items were the rule of the Ghetto.  Freedom was nearly gone from their grasp, and then...
  On the 6th of May, 1944, the Ghettos of Sighet were liquidated.  It was too late to do anything now.  As they formed up in the streets the survivor came to Elie's window.  "I told you..."  What else could he say?  He TOLD THEM!  Over and over HE TOLD THEM!  Now they stood sweating in the heat, role call after role call, counting after counting, sweating in the sun, no water, the old suffered, babies cried, the Hungarian police and the German soldiers pushed, shoved, hit, slapped, used clubs and fist, yelling, screaming, insulting (which they were used to by now...  sticks and stones).  The Jewish Police assisted the Germans and Hungarians in their brutal task.   The first Ghetto was liquidated and the second waited another day.  Elie's family waited in their house, in their Ghetto, another night, and they pretended still.  "They will not hurt us, we are their workforce.  They need us."  Elie's mother made a meal and sent the kids to bed early because tomorrow would be a long day...!!!
  In the morning they began their obedient journey to the death camps, to the ovens. It is a tragic story of mass murder, of children and parents, brothers and sisters, ripped apart.  Innocents murdered in the arms of their loving parents.  The same responsible adults who had failed to act, failed to prepare, failed to fight, failed to run away.  Entire generations were destroyed.  Entire populations murdered.  In the name of a madman and the self delusion of those who were too deluded, too lazy to fight back.  "What could they have done?", some ask.  What indeed.  What would you do? 

Hungarian Jews arrive at Auschwitz death camp in Poland, summer 1944.  Photo: German Bundesarchiv

God save us from our comfortable existence, lest we fail to act to preserve ourselves and families in order to preserve our comfort.