"Night," by Elie Wiesel.

A memoir I first read over 30 years ago. After seeing Wiesel speak with Obama last week, I decided to give it another full read through (it's a very short book; it can be read in one rainy afternoon).

Anyway, the book opens in 1941, when Wiesel was a 13 year old boy, living in Sighet, Transylvania, a Jewish ghetto in Romania, with his family. It picks up in 1944, when Hungarian authorities allowed the German army to deport the Jewish community in Sighet to Auschwitz, and continues through his time at Buchenwald, and ultimately his liberation from the concentration camps.

It's an absolutely HORRIFYING account, but remains one of the most moving memoirs I've ever read. It's not for the faint of heart, but you should read it even if you are.

There's one scene in particular that tears me apart: A violinist playing Beethoven as he dies---Jews were not allowed to play Beethoven in the camps. They were considered beneath the greatness of Beethoven because he was German. To the Nazi mind set, it was an insult to the composers memory.

Wiesel's father missing out on liberation----by a matter of days----made me cry. Again.

Please read.