The message Wiesel basically portrayed is how inhumane conditions provided by inhumane perpetrators often result in one's losing own humanity, which was ultimately the point of the Nazis when they said Jews weren't really human in the first place. They treated Jews like animals and they became them. But then, almost anybody would. 
 And I have absolutely no doubt that this is true, not only in Nazi concentration camps, but under any circumstance in which people are solely focused on survival, no matter what. And for this Elie Wiesel certainly deserves to be lauded... to have had the courage of writing down what most people try to hide every day: the pettiness and selfishness each one of us as human beings possess, think, and feel and which he bared for the world to see, giving them the power to destroy him and his soul again if they so choose. This is no small feat, for any writer, but especially for one who already went through so much for so long. 
 If this is such great writing, then why not 5 stars? 
 Because the narration technique he chose took away from the impact of what he was telling. Yes, his intent was probably to shock the reader into the 'normalcy' of all he went through - which was actually atrocious - but the fact that there was no heart since the person telling it was only an empty shell, it was not as shocking as it could have been. The only part that truly moved me was when his father thought he was going to be selected and bequeathed him his knife and spoon, because that was all he had left to give, and he HAD to give something to his son - he had to give him a legacy. This was truly heart-wrenching because you felt Wiesel's desperation, his lack of acceptance, but most of all, his hope that his father wouldn't leave him. 
 If Wiesel had written in this manner throughout the novel, he would have written one of the best books in literary history, which would have caused so much devastation. Perhaps it's best that he didn't.