NIGHT

I think it was partly because he was writing about such a dark time in his own life and such a dark time in the history of the world.Darkness, of course, symbolizes evil and the fact that Elie’s worst days in the camps took place over the winter of 1944/45 means that the majority of their time was spent in darkness, during the long winter nights. We will recall that their arrival at Auschwitz took place under cover of darkness and we read, “As the train stopped, we saw this time that flames were gushing out of a tall chimney into the black sky.” The flames can symbolize the spirit of the Jews being engulfed by the black evil of the Third Reich. A similar image is provided by the scene where truckloads of children are sacrificed in a fiery ditch. The flaming corpses light up the night sky at Birkenau. Even in the daylight, there is a black pall of smoke hanging over the camp. There is no escape from the darkness.