On Elie Wiesel's Death, Feat. Cam Best

When two summer camp teens admitted to me that they hadn’t heard of Elie Wiesel, I scolded them. I spelled out his name in a yell and demanded that they read “Night” – which they also hadn’t heard of. And I felt such an uneasiness as I spoke of this notorious human being in the past tense: he was a Holocaust survivor, he was a noble prize winning writer, he was one of my favorite authors. 

Those among us who have read “Night” know of its indescribable ability to drag and trap you between the barbed wire fence sentences: Elie was in multiple concentration camps, and we outsiders have the privilege to set aside these horrors on a coffee table when they get too intense.  

A few months ago, I reread this memoir for a college class on adolescent literature. When I was in middle school, I got to experience this book as living writing – I wrote to Mr. Wiesel, expressing how much I loved his book and how important I knew it was. And he wrote me back, encouraging me to keep reading and learning. It was a pivotal moment when I learned how conversational books were, between the reader and the text , and the reader and the author. This memory with Mr. Wiesel defines me as a reader and a writer – as a person.

Reading “Night” was the first time that I found a work of literature that showed how suffering could be repurposed. I learned that art –even literature –could find words for the unspeakable, and pain had a place. 

As a future middle school teacher, I expect to teach “Night” in my classroom. But now, I do not know how my future students will experience “Night”. I do not know how much different this story will be now that its author is dead.

Never before has someone’s death felt like a victory for evil. I’m terrified of our growing age of questioning – of insisting that photographs were photoshopped, that physical proof is not good enough. Now that the most predominant Holocaust survivor is dead, I worry that it is only a matter of time before humanity will be convinced that this history was a hoax.

As a Catholic-raised, current agnostic, Mr. Wiesel’s death makes me religious: it makes me want to believe in something that offers peace, some reward for someone so remarkable. My hope that he is reunited with his family is one offering of peace. But I know that another offering of peace is to remember to fight injustice, and to remember how he dedicated his life to this.

It has been over a month since Elie Wiesel’s death – and I barely remember it. I barely remember that there was an author behind one of my favorite books; I barely remembered him when he was still living. I have no idea of how his death has impacted the Jewish community, or the all survivors of any horrors. I have no idea how to convince two summer camp teens to care about a man who was once, so recently, living history.

But I think that “remembering” starts with a willingness to listen and to speak.

Read more of Cam Best's work on Floodmark.