SOURCE: Joseloff, Samuel H. “Link and Promise: The Works of Elie Wiesel.” Southern Humanities Review 8, no. 2 (spring 1974): 163-70.

In the following essay, Joseloff traces Wiesel's literary development throughout his career.

For whoever lives through a trial, or takes part in an event that weighs on man's destiny or frees him, is duty-bound to transmit what he has seen, felt and feared. The Jew has always been obsessed by this obligation. He has always known that to live an experience or create a vision, and not transform it into link and promise, is to turn it into a gift to death.

(“To a Young Jew of Today,” One Generation After)

The year is 1944; the place is Sighet, Hungary. The Jews in this town feel secure, for with the good news from the Russian front, it seems that Hitler's barbarians will at last be defeated. Then their illusions are shattered...