What was the purpose of Elie Wiesel's book night? What was he trying to say about himself?

Question

what was the purpose that elie wiesel wrote the book? what was he trying to say about himself? How is his message impotant in todays society?

Answer 1

I've read this book...Wikipedia says it pretty well.

Wiesel deploys a sparse and fragmented narrative style, with frequent shifts in point of view.[3] It is "the style of the chroniclers of the ghettos," he writes, "where everything had to be said swiftly, with one breath. You never knew when the enemy might kick in the door ..."[4] The recurring themes are Wiesel's increasing disgust with mankind and his loss of faith in God, reflected in the inversion of the father-child relationship as his father declines to a helpless state and the teenager becomes his resentful caregiver. "If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival ... Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever."[5] In Night, everything is inverted, every value destroyed. "Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends," a Kapo tells him. "Everyone lives and dies for himself alone."[6]

He wrote the book to inform people about the horrific nature of the Holocaust in a way that was more real than a few sentences in a history book. The biggest themes are loss of religion, destruction of the self, inversion of the familial structure, embitterment, and the darkness which Weisel felt internally.

Weisel seems to be posing commentary on how the adolescents must (fairly or unfairly) inherit the struggles of their fathers. The youth can choose to be embittered and ashamed, or they can work to build a greater future by not allowing these wars to happen again.