Wiesel's initial
version of "Night" was written in Yiddish. In it he flamed forth and craved
revenge. He wrote:
"At the end of the
war, I refused to return to my hometown [in Hungary, where he watched neighbors
smile as the Jews, including those in his family, were marched out] because I
didn't want to see any more the faces they revealed behind their disguises on
that day of expulsion. However, from one perspective, I am sorry I didn't
return home, at least for a few days, in order to take revenge - to avenge the
experts of hypocrisy, the inhabitants of my town. Then it would have been possible
to take revenge!"
I remember hearing Wiesel talk at B.U. about Palestinian
terrorism, and say, "We, the survivors of the camps, turned aside from
revenge. We are thus better than the Palestinians."
I remember feeling that I wished he and those like him had
exacted revenge. I remember feeling that Palestinians would then have suffered
less the full brunt of Jewish rage.
Those were my feelings, then.
My feeling now, is that subtracting rage and anger from
"Night", which he did, when it went from the initial Yiddish to
translation, diminished the book and the author.
It made him less complete, more sanctimonious.
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