The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing… And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
“For God’s sake, where is God?”
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
“Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows…”
That night, the soup tasted of corpses.
Elie Wiesel
Night
In memory of Elie Wiesel, the Auschwitz survivor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and author whose witness forced us to account for our incredible capacity for cruelty.
