Dawn – Elie Wiesel (1960)

Dawn by Elie Wiesel, published in 1960, is the second installment in Wiesel’s celebrated trilogy that includes Night and Day. Set in British-controlled Palestine before the establishment of Israel, the novel explores the night before a young Jewish Holocaust survivor, Elisha, is ordered to execute a British officer in retaliation for the hanging of a Jewish resistance fighter. This powerful and haunting novel delves into themes of memory, moral ambiguity, and the human cost of political violence.

Plot Summary

As the autumn night deepens over Palestine, the air hangs heavy with dread and anticipation. Elisha, an eighteen-year-old survivor of Buchenwald, stands at a window watching the twilight dissolve into darkness. Somewhere in the house, a child’s cry pierces the hush, and across the street, an old woman closes her shutters. Elisha’s heart pounds under the burden of what awaits at dawn – he has been ordered to execute an English officer, Captain John Dawson, in retaliation for the British decision to hang David ben Moshe, a Jewish resistance fighter.

Elisha was not always a killer. Only months earlier, he was a lost young man in Paris, fresh from the horrors of the camps, his future an empty page. Gad, a charismatic figure, had appeared at his door, speaking of Palestine, of freedom, of a homeland for the Jewish people. Gad’s voice carried the weight of destiny, and soon Elisha, seeking meaning, offered his future to the resistance. He left behind his dreams of studying philosophy, his hopes of finding answers to the tormenting questions left by the war, and took up arms for a cause that promised salvation through sacrifice.

Now, in the stillness of night, Elisha wrestles with the shadow of what he is to become. Around him, comrades prepare for the dawn. Gad, calm and unwavering, reminds him that this is war, that a man must sometimes kill to secure a future. Ilana, the voice of the resistance, speaks words of steel and sorrow over the clandestine radio, soothing and stirring the hearts of fighters and families alike. Joab, the Madman, and Gideon, the Saint, both marked by brushes with death, drift through the house, quiet and tense, each carrying his own burden of memory.

Outside, the British have locked the city under curfew. Inside, time stretches and coils, every tick of the clock an echo in Elisha’s mind. As the night deepens, memories rise to the surface. The beggar from his childhood who had taught him the art of recognizing night by the appearance of a face at a window. The old master’s words on death – a being made entirely of eyes. And Catherine, the woman in Paris who had taught him of love, who had whispered poor boy as if she could see the shadow of death clinging to him even then.

The house holds more than just men and weapons; it holds ghosts. The dead from Buchenwald, his parents, the friends he has lost, all seem to fill the room, their presence thick in the air. Elisha feels them watching, judging, mourning. He imagines the face of John Dawson’s mother across the sea, pacing a room, waiting for dawn with a heart breaking in silence. He imagines David ben Moshe in his cell, steady, defiant, his life slipping away with every passing hour.

Gideon descends to the cellar to bring Dawson a last meal, though Elisha knows no man condemned to die has an appetite. The condemned man’s last meal is an old and cruel joke, a mockery of the life about to be extinguished. Elisha’s thoughts swirl with bitterness, dread, and a strange, hollow empathy. In this waiting, he is both executioner and victim, both survivor and mourner.

The night turns colder. Around the table, they sip tea and share stories of brushes with death. Joab recalls surviving by pretending madness, Gideon by clinging to faith, Gad by forcing British prisoners to choose among themselves which one would die. Ilana, the voice that carries across occupied Palestine, was saved once by a simple cold, her voice too hoarse for recognition. Elisha listens, burdened by the weight of what he is about to do, feeling the weight of lives lost, saved, and now, about to be taken.

Midnight comes, and with it, the gathering of shadows. The hours ahead feel endless, yet dawn approaches with merciless certainty. Elisha drifts in memory to Catherine, to the child he once was, to the man he was meant to be. But the present will not release him. He feels the house close in, the air too thick to breathe, the eyes of the dead too many to bear. He is no longer merely a boy or a soldier – he has become death’s messenger, a vessel for history’s cruelty.

The moment arrives when there is no more waiting. The hours of night have emptied themselves into this single act, and Elisha walks to the cellar, where John Dawson waits. The Englishman, calm in the face of his fate, does not beg, does not curse. The room is cold, the silence heavy. Elisha raises the gun. The world holds its breath.

Outside, the sun rises over a land still locked in struggle, casting its pale light over stone streets and shuttered windows. Somewhere in the distance, the cry of a child fades. In the stillness, Elisha stands, marked forever by the act he has committed, by the life he has taken, by the man he has become. The dawn has come, but the darkness within him lingers, stretching beyond the morning light.

Main Characters

• Elisha: An eighteen-year-old Holocaust survivor from Buchenwald, Elisha is haunted by the trauma of his past. Recruited into the Jewish resistance in Palestine, he grapples with profound ethical turmoil when ordered to kill an English hostage. His arc is one of psychological unraveling, as he moves from survivor to executioner, wrestling with memory, guilt, and his place in a world fractured by violence.

• Gad: A charismatic and persuasive figure, Gad recruits Elisha into the resistance. Calm under pressure and devoted to the cause, Gad represents the voice of political pragmatism, often repeating “this is war” to justify their actions. His influence over Elisha is both nurturing and manipulative, pushing the young man toward a path of violence.

• John Dawson: The British officer held hostage by the resistance, Dawson is a symbol of the “enemy,” though his humanity complicates this role. Though we learn little about him directly, his presence exerts immense pressure on Elisha, making Dawson a mirror for Elisha’s own doubts and fears.

• Ilana: The radio voice of the resistance, Ilana’s broadcasts inspire fighters and civilians alike. She is both maternal and melancholic, embodying the sorrow and moral weight of the struggle. Ilana offers emotional grounding to Elisha while herself grappling with the collective grief of their people.

• The Old Man: The mysterious leader of the resistance, known only as the Old Man, personifies ideological commitment and strategic coldness. He orchestrates the execution order, standing as the embodiment of the movement’s ruthless logic.

Theme

• Moral Ambiguity of Violence: The novel interrogates whether ends justify means, particularly when a people’s survival is at stake. Elisha’s torment reflects the crushing moral complexity of killing for a cause, blurring lines between justice, revenge, and murder.

• Memory and the Ghosts of the Past: Haunted by Holocaust memories and the faces of the dead, Elisha embodies the psychological scars of genocide. Wiesel uses memories as living presences, showing how the past shapes present action and identity.

• The Struggle for Identity: Elisha’s journey is not only political but existential. As he transitions from victim to soldier to executioner, he wrestles with questions of who he is, what he believes in, and how much choice he has in shaping his destiny.

• Night as a Symbol: Nightfall carries heavy symbolic weight, representing moral darkness, introspection, and the liminal space between innocence and guilt. As Elisha waits through the night, the atmosphere thickens with dread, uncertainty, and transformation.

Writing Style and Tone

Elie Wiesel’s writing style in Dawn is lyrical yet spare, suffused with philosophical reflection and psychological depth. His language often blurs the line between poetry and prose, using symbolic imagery and inner monologues to convey Elisha’s tortured psyche. The novel is structured almost like a Greek tragedy, with the bulk of the narrative unfolding over a single night, heightening the tension and claustrophobia of the protagonist’s moral ordeal.

The tone is somber, introspective, and at times, surreal. Wiesel suffuses the story with a profound sense of loss, weaving together the personal and the political into a tapestry of anguish. There’s an almost dreamlike quality to Elisha’s narration, where past and present bleed into each other and the weight of memory looms larger than the physical world. Throughout, Wiesel’s tone remains compassionate yet unflinching, refusing easy answers or sentimentality.