Words of Witness: The Fiction of Elie Wiesel by Léonard Rosmarin

At the heart of Elie Wiesel’s fiction lies a burning question: how can the Jewish people sustain or renew their faith in a God who allowed the dark flames of the Shoah to claim His people? An eminent scholar of Franco-Jewish literature, Léonard Rosmarin traces the various attempts made by Wiesel’s protagonists to answer such a pivotal question. Is God indifferent to human suffering? A cruel spectator? Or does He need to partner with His creatures to improve life on earth? In the face of this existential dilemma, Wiesel’s characters resort to despair, silence, defiance, even insanity. Léonard Rosmarin carefully identifies these varied responses in a nuanced and revealing study that takes the reader, chronologically, through the trajectory of Wiesel’s novels.

In Words of Witness, Rosmarin engages the reader in a probing analysis of ethical, historical, and personal dilemmas that stem from the Shoah. Written with great eloquence and clarity, he co-creates, with Wiesel, a journey that culminates in the ultimate response to these essential questions. To embody the Messiah is a noble aspiration that assumes an immense responsibility, that of remaining continuously open and available to others in need.
Dr. Leslie Anne Boldt
Professor Emerita, French Studies
Brock University

Words of Witness, The Fiction of Élie Wesel becomes the embodiment of Professor Emeritus Léonard Rosmarin's gift to a world where we must all hope, like Wiesel himself.

Despite having consumed libraries of books, this book, the oeuvre of decades, arrested me in a way none other has. Rosmarin catapulted me back to that day when, as a 9 year old, I saw the black and white image of the pile of bodies in Auschwitz.

Like Wiesel's books, Rosmarin's transformation of the Word into Meaning, stuns. It forces us to re-read, to stop, to turn toward, to turn away, to cry, and yes, to feel moments of relief in humor that can still exist while a living or dead hell resides in our mind.

He becomes the provider of the entire spectrum of the human condition; the spiritual itinerary, the descent into the abyss, guilt, shame, horror, denial, disgust, despair, division, and goodness, grace, hope and conditional optimism. Thus, the unthinkable can be almost approached. We have the opportunity to see and feel, through Professor Rosmarin, what we must see and feel.

As a newcomer to Elie Wiesel, his life and times and his literature, I found Leonard Rosmarin’s incredibly in-depth analysis of the full spectrum of Wiesel’s literary contribution very instructive, insightful, challenging and indeed masterful.
From the apparent initial naivety of the Jews in Sighet with what was to come, and Wiesel’s deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau, he then experiences the complete overwhelming despair and desolation that no human being should ever have to experience. His barbaric treatment, which influenced his whole life and literature he subsequently wrote, reminds me of the line from a poem by the world famous Scottish poet Robert Burns (1784) ‘Man’s Inhumanity to Man’ – although in a different context - the first use of this much repeated quotation.
Rosmarin candidly makes his own comparisons of the relative value and literary excellence of all of Wiesel’s novels. As readers we are left with the fullest spectrum of feelings and emotions through Wiesel’s characters from initial despair to varying degrees of hope. It is a measure of the man that despite everything, Wiesel never loses his ultimate faith in God and man to survive against all the odds

Léonard Rosmarin’s Words of Witness is an excellent book to assist the reader in understanding the essence of Elie Wiesel’s fiction. Rosmarin’s analysis works on two levels:
Each section is devoted to one of Wiesel’s novels and can be read by itself as a succinct summary and overview of the story that Wiesel has written. Rosmarin outlines the novel's literary structure and then closely examines the narrative to identify the themes with which the characters, and Wiesel by extension, are grappling.
. On a more holistic level, Rosmarin threads a needle from one novel to the next to illuminate for the reader the central issue that Wiesel is trying to resolve. Rosmarin points out how this issue is first posed in the autobiographical novel Night as an attempt by Wiesel to reconcile the concept of God with the reality of the Holocaust. Rosmarin then guides the reader through the evolution of Wiesel’s thoughts concerning the nature of God and God’s relationship with man. He concludes with Wiesel’s final optimistic proposition that God is Man. In summary, the book is a well written and interesting analysis.

An awesome look into the life of Elie who I had the pleasure of meeting many years ago. Kudos to my friend Leonard and his wife Beatrice , my JGH nurse classmate for a story that is important for all of us to remember during this
uneasy time we now live in.