As this concluding volume of his moving and revealing memoirs begins; Elie Wiesel is forty years old; a writer of international repute. Determined to speak out more actively for both Holocaust survivors and the disenfranchised everywhere; he sets himself a challenge: "I will become militant. I will teach; share; bear witness. I will reveal and try to mitigate the victims' solitude." He makes words his weapon; and in these pages we relive with him his unstinting battles. We see him meet with world leaders and travel to regions ruled by war; dictatorship; racism; and exclusion in order to engage the most pressing issues of the day. We see him in the Soviet Union defending persecuted Jews and dissidents; in South Africa battling apartheid and supporting Mandela's ascension; in Cambodia and in Bosnia; calling on the world to face the atrocities; in refugee camps in Albania and Macedonia as an emissary for President Clinton. He chastises Ronald Reagan for his visit to the German military cemetery at Bitburg. He supports Lech Walesa but challenges some of his views. He confronts Francois Mitterrand over the misrepresentation of his activities in Vichy France. He does battle with Holocaust deniers. He joins tens of thousands of young Austrians demonstrating against renascent fascism in their country. He receives the Nobel Peace Prize. Through it all; Wiesel remains deeply involved with his beloved Israel; its leaders and its people; and laments its internal conflicts. He recounts the behind-the-scenes events that led to the establishment of the Holocaust Museum in Washington; D.C. He shares the feelings evoked by his return to Auschwitz; by his recollections of Yitzhak Rabin; and by his memories of his own vanished family. This is the magnificent finale of a historic memoir.
#343594 in Books 2014-11-04 2014-11-04Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.49 x 1.41 x 6.34l; 1.00 #File Name: 0805079106416 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Must readBy Alejandro PisantyScholarship; depth; beauty; and the darkness of a history that shames the West all come together. A must read.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy RCVery impressive collection of a general little known History.17 of 21 people found the following review helpful. Medieval Views of JewsBy Rob HardyWe are unfortunately familiar with gross caricatures of Jews; and it isn’t just Nazis that promoted them. The images go way back because societies centuries ago found it useful to shun or hate Jews as actively responsible for the death of Jesus; despite the illogic of any such blame on contemporaries centuries later. The usefulness manifest itself in part by assigning visual characteristics to Jews that could be easily recognized. It isn’t surprising that many of these characteristics were worked out during the Middle Ages; but it is surprising (or at least it was to me) that in the early period of the first millennium; there were no visual clues; except context; for picking out a Jew in an illustration. Then over the centuries; starting around year 1000; because of complex changes in theology; economics; and urbanization; you could spot a Jew in illuminated manuscripts or stained glass windows. How did these changes come about; and what were the cues that would let ordinary people know they were looking at a depiction of a Jew? This is the big subject in _Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography_ (Metropolitan Books) by Sara Lipton. Lipton teaches medieval history and seems to have looked over centuries of such illustrations; and in a detailed and compelling book charts a slow course of evolving images that have stayed with us centuries later.If there were going to be illustrations of Bible stories; Jews certainly had to be in them. They were prophets; soldiers; and kings within the Old Testament; for instance; and initially they looked like the other prophets; etc. There was little derogatory depiction in the early Middle Ages because the Jews were officially valued. They tended; even in crucifixion pictures; to be depicted with dignity and though they might have worn funny hats; they didn’t have distinctive facial or physical features. Things darkened by the end of the twelfth century. There had been images of villains within pictures and stained glass windows; bestiality; brutality; and evil were evident in figures with beak-like or crooked noses; brutish expressions; and shaggy beards. Lipton insists that the big; hooked noses of Jews in the picture were borrowed from previous depictions of baddies; and were not a caricature of any racial characteristic of Jews. The texts of the times may describe the moral and spiritual failings of Jews; and even their crimes; but make no mention of any particular facial characteristic (except for beards; which Gentiles wore as well). That hook in the nose eventually came to be a hallmark. Interestingly; in a chapter on the depiction of Jewish women; Lipton shows how even evil Jewesses were often depicted without any grotesque features; it seems that making them visually attractive underscored how treacherous such women (and women in general) could be. The pictures of Jewish women often showed them wearing earrings; and one fifteenth century preacher said that Jewish women wore earrings in place of circumcision; which sounds a little confused to me. In fifteenth century Italy; only Jewish women and prostitutes could wear earrings. Christian moralists were ready to decry such extravagance and ostentation; and to use the pictures to help do so.There is ugliness in the many of the images; an ugliness that is sadly familiar from caricatures in our recent times. But Lipton shows this grew slowly and was fed by emphasis on the crucifixion; and the responsibility of Jews for it; along with the horrifying stories of medieval Jews ritually murdering Christian children. As societies became more urbanized; there were worries about surveillance; secrecy; and hiddenness; and the worries were expressed mostly in regard to Jews. Jews were expelled out of countries or into ghettos by the sixteenth century; and were thereby out of sight; except in the pictures that are the subject of Lipton’s book. The pictures could still provoke anger and hostility. There are many; many examples of the pictures given here as Lipton describes them; one quibble about the book is that many of the pictures could use enlargements of the details which she addresses in the text. Lipton has given a fascinating effort to try to understand what people centuries ago would have made of these pictures; while avoiding jumping to conclusions based on how we look at them now. As Lipton says toward the end of her book; her review does not absolve medieval Christians of anti-Semitism; but it does help show that the anti-Semitism was not static; and was; sadly; not even inevitable.
