From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences [Paperback]

Elie Wiesel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 1995

"One of the great writers of our generation" (The New Republic) weaves together memories of his life before the Holocaust and his great struggle to find meaning afterwards. Included are Wiesel's landmark speeches, among them his powerful testimony at the trial of Klaus Barbie and his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In these moving essays and speeches, Wiesel swings between outbursts of eloquence and the quiet, insightful conversations one might share with an old friend. His searing account of a trip to Auschwitz, Treblinka and Birkenau, many years after the war, encapsulates the enormity of the Holocaust. In another essay he castigates "revisionist" scholars who would explain away Hitler's crimes by lumping them with Stalin's. Included are his plea to former president Reagan not to visit Bitburg cemetery, his testimony at the trial of Nazi murderer Klaus Barbie and his 1986 Nobel lecture in Oslo, a dark meditation on the fanaticism, racism and political repression rampant in the world. On a more personal note, Wiesel revisits the Transylvanian town where he grew up, poignantly recalling his simple, unquestioning boyhood faith. Other pieces deal with friendship, Jewish rituals, Hitler's perversion of language, and the modern predicament--"knowledge has replaced love, machines have killed imagination."
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA-- Several essays, including Wiesel's Nobel lecture and address, appear here for the first time. Jews dying in the Holocaust made one plea to survivors: Remember! These reminiscences join Wiesel's body of writing in carrying out that imperative. The book is an essential purchase for YA collections, not only for Holocaust studies but also for the majestic literary power of this major author.
-Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Schocken (January 31, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805210202
• ISBN-13: 978-0805210200
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #879,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elie Wiesel is the author of more than forty books, including his unforgettable international best sellers Night and A Beggar in Jerusalem, winner of the Prix Médicis. He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal, and the French Legion of Honor with the rank of Grand Cross. In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wiesel reminisces upon traditions of his Jewishness!, February 1, 2003

By 

Fred W Hood "barbara377" (Fayetteville, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences (Paperback)

Once upon a weekend retreat at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, I became absorbed by Elie Wiesel's fascinatingly describing his Memory of Jewish holidays, the Talmudic literature, the Jewish Laws and stories of Abraham, Moses, Isaac and Jacob. At that point in my life after retiring as Prison Chaplain, I began to look at the lives of Jewish writers. I wished to grasp some of their pain, suffering and depths of Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Elie Wiesel had written much of those feelings in his "Night"; "Dawn" and "Souls on Fire."

While caught-up in writing about my Memories of serving as a Prison Chaplain, I wanted to choose a good Model. My first underlining began with Elie's wonderful quote from "Society and Solitude" by Emerson to begin his chapter, "The Stranger in the Bible." Then I looked back at the first chapter, "To Believe or not to Believe." There I read the habits of a Jewish mother as she teaches her children, a Talmudic Ledgend of Moses and Rabbi Akiba, other stories of other Rabbi's...I was really hooked!

After Elie's return to his birthplace of the little Jewish city of Sighet, revisiting sights of his boyhood, he arrives to that key chapter, "Making the Ghosts Speak!" He writes of his own "despair of humanity and God!" From his studies of history, philosophy, psychology, he realized his anger at the Germans. "How could they have counted Goethe and Bach as their own and at the same time massacred countless Jewish children?" Then he admits that he "was angry at God too, at the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! How could He have abandoned his people just at the moment when they needed Him?" His struggling led to his conclusion: "I am free to choose my suffering but not that of my fellow humans."

This small gem of Essays has that fearful power to prod around one's insides, revealing your own gut-wrenching memories! It surely has done that and much more for me in every reading! Don't miss it!
Retired Chap Fred W Hood