The Struggle for Understanding

Description

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) was one of the most important literary voices to emerge from the Holocaust. The Nazis took the lives of most of his family, destroyed the community in which he was raised, and subjected him to ghettoization, imprisonment in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and a death march. It is remarkable not only that Wiesel survived and found a way to write about his experiences, but that he did so with elegance and profundity. His novels grapple with questions of tradition, memory, trauma, madness, atrocity, and faith. The Struggle for Understanding examines Wiesel's literary, religious, and cultural roots and the indelible impact of the Holocaust on his storytelling. Grouped in sections on Hasidic origins, the role of the Other, theology and tradition, and later works, the chapters cover the entire span of Wiesel's career. Books analyzed include the novels Dawn, The Forgotten, The Gates of the Forest, The Town Beyond the Wall, The Testament, The Time of the Uprooted, The Sonderberg Case, and Hostage, as well as his memoir, Night. What emerges is a portrait of Wiesel's work in its full literary richness.
Foreword
Peppy Margolis

Introduction
Victoria Nesfield and Philip Smith

Part I. Hasidic Origins

1. Between Fiction and Reality: Elie Wiesel’s Memoirs
Menachem Keren-Kratz

2. The Death of Humanity and the Need for a Glory Culture: The Existential Project of Elie Wiesel
Yakir Englander

3. The Role of the Four Prophet Figures in Night
Mary Catherine Mueller

Part II. The Other

4. Embracing Madness: Elie Wiesel’s Madmen and Their Role in His Works
Jennifer Murray

5. The Bystander in Elie Wiesel’s The Town Beyond the Wall
Christin Zühlke

6. Enduring Anti-Semitic Christian Scripts in Elie Wiesel’s The Gates of the Forest
Lucas Wilson

Part III. Theology and Tradition

7. Stories Untold: Theology, Language, and the Hasidic Spirit in Elie Wiesel’s The Gates of the Forest
Ariel Evan Mayse

8. Testifying, Writing, and Putting God in the Dock: Elie Wiesel and the Crisis of Traditional Theodicy
Federico Dal Bo

9. The Importance of Memory: Jewish Mysticism and Preserving History in Elie Wiesel’s The Forgotten
Eric J. Sterling

Part IV. Later Works

10. Transcultural Networks of Holocaust Memories in Elie Wiesel’s The Time of the Uprooted
Dana Miha˘ilescu

11. Wiesel’s Political Vision in Dawn, The Testament, and Hostage
Rosemary Horowitz

12. Allegories of the Holocaust in Elie Wiesel’s Late Fiction: The Forgotten, The Sonderberg Case, and Hostage
Sue Vice

Contributors
Index

Sujets

• History of religions
• Judaism
• The Holocaust

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 août 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438475479
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Struggle for Understanding
SUNY SERIES IN C ONTEMPORARY J EWISH L ITERATURE AND C ULTURE
EZRA CAPPELL, EDITOR

Dan Shiffman, College Bound: The Pursuit of Education in Jewish American Literature, 1896–1944
Eric J. Sundquist, editor, Writing in Witness: A Holocaust Reader
Noam Pines, The Infrahuman: Animality in Modern Jewish Literature
Oded Nir, Signatures of Struggle: The Figuration of Collectivity in Israeli Fiction
Zohar Weiman-Kelman, Queer Expectations: A Genealogy of Jewish Women’s Poetry
Richard J. Fein, translator, The Full Pomegranate: Poems of Avrom Sutzkever
Victoria Aarons and Holli Levitsky, editors, New Directions in Jewish American and Holocaust Literatures: Reading and Teaching
Jennifer Cazenave, An Archive of the Catastrophe: The Unused Footage of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah
Ruthie Abeliovich, Possessed Voices: Aural Remains from Modernist Hebrew Theater
Victoria Nesfield and Philip Smith, editors, The Struggle for Understanding: Elie Wiesel’s Literary Works
The Struggle for Understanding
Elie Wiesel’s Literary Works
Edited by
Victoria Nesfield and Philip Smith
Cover: “Rain in the Forest, Scarborough.” Used by permission of the photographer, Mark Mullen.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nesfield, Victoria, 1984– editor. | Smith, Philip, 1983– editor.
Title: The struggle for understanding : Elie Wiesel’s literary works / edited by Victoria Nesfield and Philip Smith.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Series: SUNY series in contemporary Jewish literature and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018040458 | ISBN 9781438475455 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438475479 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Wiesel, Elie, 1928–2016—Criticism and interpretation.
Classification: LCC PQ2683.I32 Z886 2019 | DDC 848/.91409—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018040458
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword
Peppy Margolis
Introduction
Victoria Nesfield and Philip Smith
P ART I. H ASIDIC O RIGINS
1. Between Fiction and Reality: Elie Wiesel’s Memoirs
Menachem Keren-Kratz
2. The Death of Humanity and the Need for a Glory Culture: The Existential Project of Elie Wiesel
Yakir Englander
3. The Role of the Four Prophet Figures in Night
Mary Catherine Mueller
P ART II. T HE O THER
4. Embracing Madness: Elie Wiesel’s Madmen and Their Role in His Works
Jennifer Murray
5. The Bystander in Elie Wiesel’s The Town Beyond the Wall
Christin Zühlke
6. Enduring Anti-Semitic Christian Scripts in Elie Wiesel’s The Gates of the Forest
Lucas Wilson
P ART III. T HEOLOGY AND T RADITION
7. Stories Untold: Theology, Language, and the Hasidic Spirit in Elie Wiesel’s The Gates of the Forest
Ariel Evan Mayse
8. Testifying, Writing, and Putting God in the Dock: Elie Wiesel and the Crisis of Traditional Theodicy
Federico Dal Bo
9. The Importance of Memory: Jewish Mysticism and Preserving History in Elie Wiesel’s The Forgotten
Eric J. Sterling
P ART IV. L ATER W ORKS
10. Transcultural Networks of Holocaust Memories in Elie Wiesel’s The Time of the Uprooted
Dana Mihăilescu
11. Wiesel’s Political Vision in Dawn , The Testament , and Hostage
Rosemary Horowitz
12. Allegories of the Holocaust in Elie Wiesel’s Late Fiction: The Forgotten , The Sonderberg Case , and Hostage
Sue Vice
Contributors
Index
Foreword
P EPPY M ARGOLIS
Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel (1928–2016) was born in Sighet, Romania, on September 30, 1928. In May 1944, when he was fifteen years old, the Nazis deported him, with his family, to Auschwitz. He was in Auschwitz at the same time as my mother. Women and men were separated, of course, but it is possible that Elie and his father, Shlomo, met my grandfather Rachmiel and my uncles, Perez and Zalmen.
On January 29, 1945, Elie and his father arrived on a transport to Buchenwald, where his father died before liberation. My father met Elie in Buchenwald, when they were together in Barrack 66. The Nazis were preparing to evacuate all prisoners from the camp when the American army arrived on April 11, 1945. My father, David Schwarzberg, and his cousin Joe Szwarcberg stood with Elie Wiesel at the gates when the US Third Army reached them.
When Buchenwald was liberated, most of the 904 children under the age of fourteen were orphans. The American army chaplains Rabbi Robert Marcus and Rabbi Herschel Schacter arranged for the offices of OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants), the Jewish children’s relief organization in Geneva, Switzerland, to help the children. On June 2, 1945, OSE representatives arrived in Buchenwald. The OSE sent 427 children to France with Rabbi Marcus; 250 went to England; and Rabbi Schacter escorted 280 to Switzerland. Elie Wiesel and my cousin Joseph were sent from Buchenwald to Ecouis, France. Of the children sent to France, a smaller group of about ninety to one hundred boys including Elie and cousin Joe went to a home in Ambloy, in Loir-et-Cher. This home, supervised by German-born Jewish social worker Judith Hemmendinger, offered its young residents kosher facilities and religious observances.
This group of boys called themselves “the Buchenwald Boys.” The boys were subsequently moved to a home in Taverny near Paris that operated until 1947. Cousin Joe and Elie maintained a friendship even after Elie went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. Joe, who now lives in Melbourne, Australia, maintains contact with many of “the Buchenwald Boys.” He travels to see them where they scattered all over the world. He helped produce two films: The Boys of Buchenwald and The Buchenwald Ball , which tells the story of the “Boys’ ” yearly reunion in Melbourne to celebrate their survival, liberation, freedom, and friendship. 1
It was at the Sorbonne that Elie learned French and studied literature, philosophy, and psychology. It was here that the lectures by philosophers Martin Buber and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre reputedly influenced his later writings. While Elie studied in Paris, he became a journalist. For a decade he was silent about what he endured and atrocities that he witnessed during the Holocaust. After a meeting with French author François Mauriac, formerly a member of the French Resistance, and a Nobel Laureate in Literature, Elie was encouraged to set pen to paper. Mauriac, a devout Christian, remembers the young Jew with “the gaze of a Lazarus risen from the dead.” 2 With Mauriac’s guidance, influence, and persistence, Night was published.
Reading and rereading Night is an arduous task. I find myself searching for answers to the many questions Elie raises about human nature, especially good and evil. I ask how humans could allow and participate in this horrific event? Where was God’s presence, kindness, and compassion during the Holocaust? Through Night , I began a journey into the darkness of the Holocaust—an event that both my parents endured. I try to comprehend the unimaginable struggle that Elie Wiesel and both of my parents lived through. I ask myself, how did they remain sane?
Elie said, “Only those who experienced Auschwitz know what it was. Others will never know. But would they at least understand?” 3 When we, as readers, enter the incomprehensible world of Auschwitz, we encounter the dark side of humanity. We learn about the suffering of the victims by executioners or perpetrators, plus that of bystanders, and the few upstanders or rescuers. After I read Night , I have to ask: What would I have done? Could I have behaved differently? What would I do when faced with choiceless choices? Would I have survived in the winter with no coat, hat, gloves, or shoes? Would I have withstood the starvation and the beatings? How did Elie, my parents, and other survivors manage to endure and survive this nightmare?
I traveled to Buchenwald, Auschwitz, and Majdanek, plus other concentration and death camps, on a trip with Holocaust educators. This trip had a profound impact on my life. I am named for my grandmothers who perished in Majdanek and Treblinka. By chance it was my birthday, July 19, when I arrived in Poland. The voices of my grandparents spoke to me, telling me to tell their story. I wondered if I was walking in the footsteps of my parents and Elie Wiesel. It was that day that I accepted my legacy.
At the end of their days, both my parents had Alzheimer’s. The disease caused them to relive their horrific experiences. Since I look like my father’s sister, he would take my hand and beg me to help him find his way back because he was lost. My father, David Schwarzberg, passed away four years ago on May 14, a few days after the sixty-eighth anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald. He was eighty pounds and resembled the skeleton that was liberated on May 11, 1945. My father is finally at peace and reunited with his entire family.
My mother, Sara (Cederboim) Schwarzberg, survived two death camps: Majdanek and Auschwitz. She has not spoken, and cannot speak, about her traumatic experiences. Elie helped me better understand her unspeakable experiences. His writings have helped me to imagine the conditions and trauma that my parents experienced during the Holocaust. My mother, like my father, also has Alzheimer’s. Since she too lives in the past, she hears noises of gunshots in the distance and people shouting. My mot