Book excerpt: In this first volume of his two-volume autobiography, Wiesel takes us from his childhood memories of a traditional and loving Jewish family in the Romanian village of Sighet through the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald and the years of spiritual struggle, to his emergence as a witness for the Holocaust's martyrs and survivors and for the State of Israel, and as a spokesman for humanity. With 16 pages of black-and-white photographs. "From the abyss of the death camps Wiesel has come as a messenger to mankind—not with a message of hate and revenge, but with one of brotherhood and atonement." —From the citation for the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize