I must confess that though I knew who the author of the quote I chose to get permanently inked on my body was, I did not actually know its origin. I don't know why I never looked. Maybe it's because I believed this quote was a piece of beautiful mysterious poetry, so I looked no further. The quote (or the poem I believed it was) simply grabbed me in a way I couldn't quite describe. I loved the side by side of night and day and when I found the photo of the skeleton trees, it just came together for me. Well, a few nights ago, my boyfriend and I were discussing tattoos, how you've come up with what you wanted and what it actually means to you (if anything, because many people don't have a deeper meaning behind their tattoo choices - hence the conversation) and he asked me about the quote I had. So, I told him the author, Elie Weisel, and read him the full quote, as what I have tattooed is not the full quote (that would be quite wordy). Anyway, he asked where it came from (not the author, but where it came from) and I realized that I had absolutely no idea. Oddly enough it took me quite a few Google attempts to come up with the originating source of this quote, which as it turns out, is not poetry. It is actually an excerpt from a book he wrote. This book is part of a trilogy... Finding out the true origination (and meaning for the author) gave my tattoo a whole new perspective. Don't get me wrong, it still means the same thing to me, but.... I have a new appreciation.
Elie wrote three books: Night, Dawn and Day
"Night is one of the masterpieces of Holocaust literature. First published in 1958, it is the autobiographical account of an adolescent boy and his father in Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel writes of their battle for survival and of his battle with God for a way to understand the wanton cruelty he witnesses each day. In the short novel Dawn (1960), a young man who has survived World War II and settled in Palestine joins a Jewish underground movement and is commanded to execute a British officer who has been taken hostage. In Day(previously titled The Accident, 1961), Wiesel questions the limits of conscience: Can Holocaust survivors forge a new life despite their memories? Wiesel’s trilogy offers insights on mankind’s attraction to violence and on the temptation of self-destruction."
http://www.amazon.com/The-Night-Trilogy-Dawn-Day/dp/0809073641
This quote comes from a piece of literature based on his true experiences through the Holocaust. Now, you don't know me, so you obviously won't know that I have had an innate interest in the Holocaust since I was a kid. Finding out that this quote comes from the words of someone who endured such struggle simply brings a whole new meaning to my tattoo for me. My tattoo for me symbolized my poetic successes and struggles, as well as some of my life's struggles. I liked the idea of night and day over the skeleton trees, because people normally associate skeletons simply with darkness and death, but in my tattoo, I believe it symbolizes not the end, but the beginning of something new. Things have not come to an end simply because the sun has set, the moon comes out and shines a new light. Everything is reborn and nothing simply ends. Things merely change.
I have not read the books yet, but fully intend to. Everything appears to happen for a reason, yes?
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