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Night, Elie Wiesel (1960)

The Holocaust doesn’t sleep

by
Rachel Shukert
September 17, 2013

I read Night, appropriately enough, at camp. It was the only book for sale in the tuck shop, where we could make small purchases with money sent from home, much as they do in prison. I pretended to be sick for three days so I could read it, until I actually did get sick, and then had a wild-eyed fever dream that terrorizes me to this day, about a secret “selection” made in the bunks while the healthy campers were horseback riding. Nightmares that seem to last forever: Is that the true meaning of the Holocaust? If it is, I learned it from Night.

Rachel Shukert, a Tablet Magazine columnist on pop culture, is the author of the memoirs Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going To Be Great. Starstruck, the first in a series of three novels, is new from Random House. Her Twitter feed is @rachelshukert.

Rachel Shukert is the author of the memoirs Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going To Be Great,and the novel Starstruck. She is the creator of the Netflix show The Baby-Sitters Club, and a writer on such series as GLOW and Supergirl. Her Twitter feed is @rachelshukert.