All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [190]
The witness has nothing but his memory. If that is impugned, what does he have left? In the last analysis, a man like Kazin is lending credence to those who deny the Holocaust. If he refuses to believe me, why should others, more removed, believe any survivor? For some people it is easier and more convenient to say that the event never happened, that it is merely an abstraction, a delusion, a Hollywood production. How to explain to them that it was an experience that can neither he imagined nor shared?
Let me be clear: I don’t blame the critics. They are just doing their job, some in good faith, others not. No author should expect only praise. But he has the right to condemn abuse and personal insult. I place my trust in readers, hoping I will be understood. They must know that the truth I present is unvarnished; I cannot do otherwise. Sing or die, said Heine. Write or disappear. Kazin’s concept of writing and mine are not the same, nor are our motives. For him literature is an end in itself. Not for me. I don’t believe in art for art’s sake. For me literature must have an ethical dimension. The aim of the literature I call testimony is to disturb. I disturb the believer because I dare to put questions to God, the source of all faith. I disturb the miscreant because, despite my doubts and questions, I refuse to break with the religious and mystical universe that has shaped my own. Most of all, I disturb those who are comfortably settled within a system—be it political, psychological, or theological. If I have learned anything in my life, it is to distrust intellectual comfort.
I therefore understand why survivors irritate certain writers who see them not as individuals who have suffered, but as symbols, guardians of the flame. The Talmud tells us that in the days of the Temple the original parchments of the Holy Book were exhibited so that scribes might readily consult them and correct possible errors. Survivors are a bit like these parchments. So long as they exist, so long as some of them are still alive, the others know—even if they don’t always admit it—that they cannot trespass certain boundaries. I have violently criticized films, plays, and television programs that trivialize Jewish memory. William Styron has not forgiven me for having publicly decried the film made of his novel Sophie’s Choice as deplorable and indecent. If only I had kept silent, or at least uttered a few kind words about fantasies born of good intentions.
Then there are the political critics on the left of the political spectrum who refuse to forgive my love for Israel and the people of Israel. Of course, that is their right and their choice. I will return to this subject as well.
For the moment let me say that I consider myself lucky. I work, I do what I like to do. There are moments of anger, others of gratitude, but never of bitterness. I have made friends, and they are my true recompense. They are there for me in moments of doubt. But what has moved me the most are the letters I receive from young people. Hundreds of schoolchildren write to me each year, among them children of survivors who tell me of their parents or grandparents. And then there are the strangers who speak to me in public places. An old woman approaches me: “Thank you for having survived.” A younger woman, waiting on line at La Guardia Airport, comments on a televised discussion among scholars and experts on the nuclear peril: “I watched the program, you spoke for me.” Messages from survivors: “Thank you for our children.” Or: “Thank you for my parents.” I appreciate these messages from all kinds of people, Jews and Christians. They help me rally at times of weariness and disappointment, counterbalancing the insults and death threats that pile ever higher on my desk.
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In the middle of the 1960s, an Israeli consul introduced me to a young Franco-American couple