Night Summaries

Chapter 1 "They called him Moché the BeadleŠ" Summary: Night opens with a brief description of a poor man named Moché the Beadle, who lives in the narrator's hometown of Sighet, Transylvania (modern-day Romania; at the time that the novel opens, the town is under Hungarian control). Moché is generally well liked, works in the Hasidic synagogue, and is a very pious and humble individual. In 1941, when he is twelve, the narrator, Eliezer Wiesel, wants to …

…clothes and sex. Nobody thought of revenge. Three days after Buchenwald was liberated, Eliezer became deathly ill with food poisoning and spent two weeks in the hospital. After he got a little bit better, he gathered enough strength to look at himself in the mirror. He had not seen his reflection since living in the ghetto. When he looks at himself, he sees the eyes of a corpse, and that image has never left him.