concentration camp

Generally speaking, there's little on Million Dollar Listing that strikes me as edifying or illuminating television. Mostly, I've watched this Bravo reality/unscripted show about three Los Angeles real estate brokers – Josh Flagg, Chad Rogers and Madison Hildebrand -- who are young, ambitious and seemingly very spoiled, with a weird fascination.

Would Chad's hair stylist convince him to try a buzz cut? No. Could Madison succumb to the come-on of a sexy female client? No. Was Josh seriously concerned about his health? Yes.

However, I caught up with the show this week and saw a sequence that got to me on a very emotional level. Josh Flagg, in an effort to learn more about his grandmother Edith's life -- in particular, how she survived the Holocaust -- went to Amsterdam with her to visit the places she remembers.

It looks as though Oprah Winfrey has been browsing the nonfiction aisles of the bookstore. While the authenticity of her last Oprah's Book Club selection is still in question, she has moved on to assign her faithful readers another memoir: Night, by Elie Wiesel. You may recognize his name for the Nobel Peace Prize he won in 1986 for decades of writing against hatred and racism. Wiesel's first novel (he calls it a memoir) chronicles his family's experience in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Oprah said the book "should be required reading for all of humanity." Next month, Oprah will also hold a high school essay contest about the book, in which 50 selected writers will be flown to Chicago to be part of the audience when Wiesel is a guest. She will also visit Auschwitz with Wiesel, which should make for one very powerful hour of television.