Elie Wiesel and Testimonial representation of the holocaust
The debate surrounding literary representations of the Holocaust is a long-standing and controversial one. Many critics argue that the Holocaust should only be represented historically or through testimony, as to fictionalise about the atrocities is akin to trivialising them. ... Many of those who survived the Holocaust have chosen to write their experience of it, some like Elie Wiesel choose to write autobiographically, others like Ida Fink choose a fictional approach. In this case, one should consider whether the debate can be applied to such work: is it possible for a fictional account by a survivor to remain purely fiction and if so, can someone who has experienced the Holocaust first hand be accused of trivialising it through writing a fictional account. This essay seeks to examine testimonial approaches in relation to this debate through a textual analysis of Wiesel’s Night, examining some of the arguments for and against the use of testimony. Wiesel’s Night provides a harrowing autobiographical record of his time as a child in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The focus throughout is on Wiesel’s personal struggle not just for survival but also with his faith and relationship with his father. Wiesel’s relationship with his father becomes slowly more inverted as the narration progresses. ... ” Towards the end of the book, his father has become dependent on Wiesel; the father son relationship has been turned on its head. ... ’ And I heard a voice within me answer him:…Here He is- he is hanging here on this gallow (Pg 77) The hanging of the boy is not only symbolic of Wiesel’s loss of faith but of the ‘death’ of his childhood and the life that has been left behind. ... Their absence from the rest of the text represents this but also creates a silence that suggests that perhaps Wiesel cannot find the words to express the sense of grief that this void creates.