by Lorraine Blatt, Librarian
Legends of Our Time, by Elie Wiesel
The famed Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote Legends of Our Time in 1968. It is a series of short chapters of reminiscences of his life from his childhood in Hungary; episodes from World War II; and experiences after the war as he lived in France and traveled in Europe, Russia, Israel, and the U.S.
Wiesel remembers the Rebbes, the Chasidic teachers who had a profound influence on his younger years. Some of his stories and legends seem based in real events, while others have a somewhat mythical character; they may be from his memories or perhaps from his imagination. Wiesel suffered tremendous stress, both physical and emotional, during the war years, and some of these legends gave him a way to hold on to himself.
The stories from his later years include one of his return to Germany on a speaking tour. He had expected to find “hate” within himself and the people of Germany. But, he writes, “hatred of the enemy – especially in his defeat – has never been a Jewish habit.” ‘Rejoice not on seeing thine enemy struck down,’ Solomon teaches.”
In a chapter about Jews he encountered in the Soviet Union in 1965-66, Wiesel speaks of his belief that despite the efforts of Soviet leaders to destroy the “Jewishness” of their Jewish citizens, Judaism survived as an ethnic identity, if not so much as a religion; young Russians wanted to identify with their Jewish roots. Wiesel’s 1966 book The Jews of Silence was part of his great effort to speak to the plight of the Jews in Russia, who were finally allowed to emigrate in the 1980s.
Wiesel speaks passionately about the guilt all humanity shares over the Holocaust. The Germans, Eastern Europeans, and Russians did little to stop the carnage. There were those in Western Europe who made a greater attempt to save their Jews, and some individuals did all they could to aid Jews. However, on the whole, Wiesel sees the inaction of most of the world as guilt and complicity. Governments and communities did nothing to really stop the events begun by the Germans. He speaks eloquently of the Jews themselves. Even when they learned what was happening, many refused to believe and did not fight back.
He criticizes Jews in both Europe and the U.S. for waiting too long to take a stand on what was happening. This lack of outcry by the world, he says, allowed the Germans to believe that “no one really cared about the Jews.” Wiesel believes there was, and still is, a guilt within all humanity, the Jews included, for not being able to fight the evil of the times.
In the last chapter, “A Plea for the Dead,” Wiesel speaks of the futility of those who try to understand and/ or explain the Holocaust. His view is that “it is not understandable.” The Jews were alone. The trials at Nuremberg bring this concept to light in Wiesel’s eyes.
The Holocaust, Wiesel believes, could not have happened without the tacit consent of the rest of the world. Even the Jews living outside Europe had a hand in permitting Hitler and the Axis to go forward. This profound book and gives one much to contemplate.