Customer Reviews

Dawn

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Elie Wiesel's Night is one of the most horrifying, moving accounts of the Holocaust experience that I have read. This book, Dawn, is sometimes referred to as a sequel to Night; however, I think that is misleading. Though readers of Night will see the influence of the author's concentration camp experience reflected in this book, Dawn is something very different.

The most obvious difference, of course, is that Night is nonfiction whereas Dawn is a novel. Dawn tells the story of Elisha, a Holocaust survivor, who is recruited to a terrorist group in Palestine that is trying to drive out the British in the years after World War II. After participating in a number of terrorist activities without remorse, Elisha is assigned to execute a prisoner in retaliation for the execution of one of his comrades. As he waits through the night for his task at dawn, Elisha struggle (literally) with his ghosts.

When faced with an author like Wiesel who has written a classic piece of nonfiction like Night, it is often difficult to judge his fiction fairly. The fiction doesn't seem to have the same impact. And though I, too, prefer Night, I found this book to be powerful in its own right. Dawn gives real insight into how people can be haunted and changed by an unfathomable trauma. In addition, it addresses real philosophical issues such as when does killing become murder and how does becoming a murderer change a person? Does suffering unto death justify a (some might say) disproportionate response?

In these post 9/11 days, I also found the insight into the terrorist mindset very interesting. The American revolutionaries and the Zionists were considered terrorists in their day much as the Palestinians and al Queda are today and, though there are obviously differences between all these groups, there are some attitudes that run through all who can find it in themselves to use terror tactics. It is fascinating to see words come from the mouths of these young Jewish partisans that would fit equally well in the mouths of Palestinians today.

All in all, Dawn is an excellent work: brief but powerful.

This short novel was a bit difficult to take but, then, I believe that this was how the author meant it to be. It is the story of a Holocaust survivor who is now in Palestine involved in the underground efforts to wrest control of the area from the British. The man must execute a British officer and his struggles with this is the crux of the story. I was not ever quite sure how Wiesel intended us to view the "hero". At times I thought that the author wrote as though we would understand the actions of the Jewish militants. At other times, I felt he was trying to show us that violence only creates more victims. Certainly, the ending of "Dawn" was a powerful statement of the evil that can emerge from any man no matter how just the cause. I think that the author adds to his purpose by keeping us a bit off balance throughout the story. He reminds us that there are no easy answers nor easy perspectives.

Most of us are aqcuainted with the story of the creation of the Israeli nation including the non-diplomatic efforts by the militant groups. This book was copyrighted in 1961 at a time when the events could be viewed with a somewhat different perspective. I say this because I found myself drawn to wonder how Wiesel would view a Palastinian suicide bomber. I guess it was his analytical analysis of the conflicting sides that made me wonder about this. I realize that it was not the author's point to excuse or justify the violence. However, there was a certain antiseptic approach to the subject that caused me to wonder about the modern day terrorist.

This is a story that will challenge the reader to ask themselves a question or two. It only takes a short while to read but it has a message that should last quite a while.

This book was recommended to me as a sequel to Night. If you're looking for a traditional sequel in Dawn, you'll probably be disappointed. Dawn is a sequel to Night in that it reveals another chapter in the life of the Jewish community that survived the Holocaust. Weisel raises serious questions of right and wrong by placing a Holocaust survivor "on the other side of the gun." If you like struggling with difficult moral/ethical issues, this book would be a great choice. If you like the different aspects of the Jewish experience of the Holocaust, you'll also want to read The Accident, the third book in the Night Trilogy.

In an era when New Age tripe like Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Starhawk is gobbled up by people who want to think that everything is nifty, it is more important than ever to know that Elie Wiesel is still with us illuminating the darkened corners of the soul and struggling desperately to find meaning in a chaotic seemingly sadistic universe.

Written after Night and considered by many to be a sequel, this is the story of a Holocaust survivor who is ordered to kill a British soldier. Where many historians see this as a glorious time in the history of Israel, when Jews stopped victims and fought back against the British imperialists, this book brings it down to one character. Beset by guilt and the ghosts of the dead, he can see no important difference between this one execution and the atrocities perpetrated against his family. And while he knows that this action is of a necessity if Israel is ever going to be a reality he is tortured by his doubts and his feelings of remorse.

This is a powerful book and one that doesn't leave you when you finish it. Ironically, it's a more disturbing novel than Night as Night has a discernable villain in the Nazis, but Dawn has a character struggling to figure out whether or not he is as the Nazis. Confusing in places and dull in others, this is still one of the best post-Holocaust novels around.

Dawn is about death and violence. Each act of violence perpetrated by one person against another creates two new victims. This is a powerful story about ethics and duty. Elisha, the narrator is a holocaust survivor now fighting against the British for an Israeli state. He learns that he has been chosen to execute a British Army Captain in retaliation to the execution of a young Israeli fighter.

Elisha struggles with the decision and tries desperately to understand how and why and what he is supposed to do. What is his duty? Are his actions justified? Is he beyond morals?

Towards the end of this short work, Elisha decides he must speak with the man he is to kill. He struggles with the idea of extinguishing a life.

He is forced to consider how this may transform him into an empty shell of his former self leaving him guessing as to who he will become.

While touted by the publisher as a sequel to his haunting memoir, *Night*, *Dawn* really povides us with a story that is powerful in its own right. *Dawn* deserves pride of place next to Simon Weisenthal's *The Sunflower* and Albert Camus' *The Plague* as one of the seminal masterpieces that deal with what may be the most pressing moral issue after the Holocaust--how are we to respond to the violence enacted by others?
While Camus addresses the question of response, and Weisenthal the possibility of forgiveness, Wiesel takes as his guiding question the behavior of the victim who becomes empowered. The main character is a Holocaust survivor that in the struggle for Isreali independence finds himelf in the position of no longer being the victim, but rather having the power to victimize. *Dawn*, brief as it is, serves as a powerful psychological exploration of this drastic change of roles. The goal of the work is straightforward--to raise in the mind of the readers the question of what *they* would do in the protagonist's position. Weisel's quasi-mystical elements add to this by invoking the significance of our connections to the past. A key concern on the protagonist's mind is how his decision to execute, or refrain from executing, a British soldier, is what this makes not only of himself, but of all those who in some way made him what he is. If he chooses to kill, does he make all of them killers as well?
Though fellow survivor Primo Levi claims not to care whether he is a potential killer, given that he was in fact not a killer but a victim, Wiesel is immensely interested in this question. It is a haunting question posed exceedingly well in this short, but surprisingly rich book. The questions this novel poses are ones that will not soon leave the reader's mind.

I am a I had to read this book for my summer reading. I didn't expect much, and left it till the end of August. However, this book nearly brought tears two my eyes as I watched, clearer than a movie could show, a boy's family, teachers, and those he had known witness him as he is about to become a murderer. The images were crystal clear, and the narator wasted no time with anymore detail than a person observing the events would recall. This book provoked alot of thought in me, especially since my father fought for Israel's freedom during the Yom Kippur war. Was he a killer? Even he is not entirely sure.

Dawn is an incredible novel, indicative of Elie Wiesel's superb writing ability. In a hundered pages, he manages to leave the reader with haunting images, and raise questions on the value of life, what defines right, wrong, and human, and what price we must be willing to pay for something we believe in. Every sentence is exceptional, and full of depth. This was one of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read.

dawn is an illuminating document about the terrorist phychology during the emancipation of palistine. In a framework of tense melodrama, Wiesel describes the plight of traditional Jewish morality confronted with the modern world of power politics and a murder.

Elie Wiesel's "Dawn" is a thoughtful look on the price of survival in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Wiesel's preface illustrates how appropriate this novella is to our time, and though he doesn't state so directly, particularly regarding the long-living Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Wiesel is articulate and poetic and his fictitious account is masterfully written.

Elisha is an eighteen year old Holocaust survivor recruited by the Israeli Resistance Movement to fight against the British occupation in Palestine. He comes out of the war understandably traumatized and is now faced with the moral dilemma of having to murder a British captain held captive as a reprisal for the capture of one of their own, David ben Moshe.

Elisha is assigned to the task by the masked Old One, the leader of the Resistance Movement. The Resistance would spare Captain John Dawson's life if David ben Moshe is returned to them, but the British do not want to concede. Two lives are held in the balance as a political stand by each side's perpetuation of war. Though Elisha has seen death many times during the Holocaust, and has even murdered from afar while fighting in battles in the Resistance, he has never singularly murdered a man whose name and face stands before him and so he feels he will be forever changed by the experience.

He has many visitors. The fellow comrades in the Movement, particularly Gad, who as a mentor and recruitor to Elisha, chides him for his withdrawn gloomy behavior during the wait for dawn to kill the man by reminding him, "This is War". The other comrades do their best to persuade Elisha that the act is necessary in order to secure their survival after the persecution suffered during the war. But the most significant visitors are the ghosts of his past and his imagination: he sees a beggar he once met in his hometown before the War; a young boy who reminds Elisha of himself when he was his age; his Rabbi before the War; his father, mother,and friend who were each murdered in the camps; everyone who's ever shaped his life. Elisha says to himself that these people too will be murdered along with him because they had shaped his life and after this act they will never see him the same just as he won't see himself the same. All of who he was will be wiped out.

The premise is haunting and the thematic question of whether murder can ever deliver justice is pressing. Wiesel never outright answers the question. He seems to give creedence to the idea of fighting for the Homeland by not openly stating that the Resistance's cause is unjust. But he also seems to give creedence to the idea that murder, of even one man with a name, a face, a wife, a kid, kills the executor as well-- a spiritual and psychological execution for his actions.

Wiesel's artful poetic prose is thought-provoking and powerful. This very short piece will leave its mark on you. Highly recommended.