{"id":3234,"date":"2025-12-11T05:19:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T10:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/?p=3234"},"modified":"2025-12-11T05:19:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T10:19:35","slug":"revisiting-night-understanding-trauma-through-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/2025\/12\/11\/revisiting-night-understanding-trauma-through-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting Night: Understanding Trauma Through Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Night<\/span><\/i> by Elie Wiesel, is the gut-wrenching story of Wiesel\u2019s time during the Holocaust. As discussed previously, I had first encountered the book back in eighth grade. At the time, it felt like a heavy and shocking choice for a middle-school English class, yet I\u2019m incredibly grateful we read it. Being part of the first generation that wasn\u2019t alive during 9\/11, my class grew up hearing about national trauma but never truly <\/span>feeling<\/span><\/i> the weight of it. Our understanding came through stories from parents, documentaries, or memorials\u2014never from lived experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

In furtherance of that, there were several comments stating their shock that an 8th grader read this book as a school assignment. However, is that truly bad? There were thousands of young children that had to <\/span>experience<\/span><\/i> the Holocaust, not read it. If they had to experience it, the least we could do was read and learn about their trauma instead of glazing over it. For decades, trauma was seen as taboo to talk about.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, he\u2019s experienced such a traumatic experience, best if we don\u2019t ask about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShh shh, Rachel has just come back from war, let\u2019s not bring it up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sentences and ideas like those above are only worsening a person\u2019s trauma. Yes, they may not want to talk about it, however, they should feel free to do so if they would like. Acting and treating them like nothing has happened, is not the correct way to go about assisting someone in their trauma. That is the importance of <\/span>Night<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wiesel doesn\u2019t just recount events; he allows readers to witness how trauma reshapes a person\u2019s worldview. Instead of just statistics and facts, his story shows that trauma is not a single, universal experience. It\u2019s a personal re-telling of his life and how one historical event affected millions and each person carried that trauma differently. Healing, too, isn\u2019t one-size-fits-all. It requires a deep, personal connection between the survivor and the support they receive\u2014both during and long after the traumatic event.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wiesel\u2019s firsthand account pulled us out of the safety of historical distance and confronted us with the raw, intimate reality of what he endured. As an eighth grader\u2014and still now, reading it again as an adult\u2014the book forced me to see the Holocaust not as a chapter in history, but as an immeasurable human tragedy lived by real people. Reading stories such as Wiesel\u2019s, bridges the gap between history and humanity and allows readers to feel something more than just statistics. His book brings trauma to forefront with raw stories of his own life and his peers while in the camps.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reading these stories aren\u2019t important just for adults, but also for students of all ages. Yes, it is raw, horrific stories and experiences, but we only diminish the trauma if we wait till we\u2019re older to learn and understand other\u2019s experiences. Trauma, in moderation and with careful teaching hands, needs to be brought into classrooms of all ages in order to teach students the importance of understanding of trauma and that it can come in all different forms. <\/span><\/p>\n


References:<\/p>\n

Wiesel, E. (2006). <\/span>Night<\/em>. Hill and Wang, a Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (Original work published 1958)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Night by Elie Wiesel, is the gut-wrenching story of Wiesel\u2019s time during the Holocaust. As discussed previously, I had first encountered the book back in eighth grade. At the time, it felt like a heavy and shocking choice for a middle-school English class, yet I\u2019m incredibly grateful we read it. Being part of the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25671,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25671"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3235,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3234\/revisions\/3235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/daniellerousseau\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}