These lines come from chapter 9 of Night. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. They’ve lost so much, and the “night” ( a powerful symbol in the novel) is going to go on forever. They are drained of strength due to the lack of food and medicine they’re received, as well as the horrors and changes they’ve had to endure. In chapter 7, Elie muses on his belief that he, and everyone he’s met in the camps, are going to die before tasting freedom again. The theme of ‘never forgetting’ is one that runs through the novel and throughout Wiesel’s other works, and his broader goal to make sure the Holocaust is never forgotten. The repetition of “Never shall I forget” in these lines informs the reader how truly life-changing this experience was for Wiesel and the other men and women who suffered through it.
These lines come from the same chapter, 3, of the novel and are some of the best-known and most commonly quoted. Never … I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted his absolute justice. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed … Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. The brutality of these words, and the surety with which they’re spoken, is quite impactful.
No matter who is speaking, or what they’re speaking about, it’s hard, if not impossible, to misinterpret what is being said. They are also a great example of Wiesel’s clear, direct, style of writing. These lines allude to the crematoriums to which the Jews, including members of Elie’s own family, were taken throughout the Holocaust. These lines come from chapter 3 of Nightwhen Elie is learning about the true extent of the horrors at Birkenau/Auschwitz. ’Do you see that chimney over there? See it? Do you see those flames? (Yes, we did see the flames.) Over there-that’s where you’re going to be taken.
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