The Oath

by Elie Wiesel

  “Yes, yes! Alive!” echoed the crowd. “Let them burn alive!”

  Thereupon one could hear the hostages protesting: “Don’t do that! Not that!”

  “They’ll come out, you’ll see, my pet,” said Pavel to his beloved whip. “All Jews are cowards, they’ll come out.”

  “Yes, yes!” shouted the mob.

  “Alive, you’ll burn alive,” insisted Pavel, drawing a circle in the air with his torch.

  “Well done,” shouted the crowd, aroused by the prospect of the new and yet so ancient spectacle.

  “Not yet!” yelled the hostages. “Don’t do that to Christians! We are Christians like you! Your comrades, your brothers in Christ! Not Jews! There are no Jews here, not a single one!”

  The mob was not to be discouraged, not to be deprived of the promised entertainment. Protests flew from all sides:

  “They’re lying.”

  “They take us for fools!”

  “Or choirboys!”

  “Alive, burn them alive!”

  “No, no,” shouted the hostages in a panic. “We are Christians! Like you!”

  Together and individually they swore, swore on the heads of their mothers, living or deceased; of their spouses, beloved or loathed.

  “Lies and profanations,” Pavel declared. “This is a Jewish building. A shelter. An asylum. What would Christians be doing in an asylum? Don’t tell me you thought you’d find some treasures there!”

  The enthralled crowd was roaring with laughter. “Bravo, Pavel! What intelligence, Pavel! You shut them up! You’ll be promoted, Pavel! You’ll wind up captain! Bravo, Pavel!”

  The people’s hero: Pavel. Too bad he wasn’t wearing his uniform. Next time, he promised his whip.

  “Well?” he shouted. “You haven’t answered yet! What were you looking for in the asylum?”

  “Hostages. We are hostages.”

  “Shrewd, those Jews,” said Pavel. “Never at a loss for answers.”

  “The truth, it’s the truth! We swear it!”

  “Hostages,” inquired Pavel. “Whose hostages?”

  “The Jews’—damn it!”

  “But you said there were no more Jews in there. No good, find something else!”

  There was a silence on the hostages’ side. A moment went by before they renewed their pleas: “Our voices! Don’t you recognize our voices?”

  Pavel consulted his confederates; nobody knew them.

  Then the hostages yelled their names: “Yonel, Yonel from Batiza … Simora, Simora Frescu … Laczani Pal[unclear] … Ivan, Ivannn …”

  Now the hostages really were panicky. They shouted and shouted:

  “I live next to the woods …”

  “The first house …”

  “At the edge of the brook, that’s where I … the edge … brook …”

  “The yellow cabin … The cornfield …”

  “Petrica, my wife! Help, my turtledove!”

  The frenzied mob refused to believe, refused to listen. Its need to kill, to debase man, to offer him as fodder to the beast of night, was not yet assuaged. Drunk with power, with cruelty, it demanded more blood, more triumphs, more victims.

  Now that most of the Jews were either dead, dying or entrenched in shelters whose discovery would require hours of searching, the mob did not hesitate to set upon their own.

  “They are Jews, Jews!”

  “Let’s get done with it!”

  “Why are we wasting time!”

  “One last warning,” Pavel promised his whip. “And then …”

  “Idiots!” yelled the hostages.

  “For the last time,” said Pavel, brandishing the torch. “Come out or you’ll burn alive!”

  “Imbeciles! Assassins! We can’t come out!”

  Finally a peasant recognized two of the voices. “Yonel and Ivan …”

  “We don’t believe a word of it …”

  “Yes! We drink together … Christians, like you and me …”

  Angered by the kill-joys, the townspeople called them drunkards, traitors. Jews. The discussions degenerated into disputes, quarrels. Ancestral grudges and hates between clans, tribes and families rose to the surface. It came to blows. In the heat of the fight somebody grabbed the torch Pavel was holding absent-mindedly and hurled it onto the roof of the asylum, which burst into flames at once. Somebody else took revenge on the grocery store.

  Suddenly a red blaze, spinning from the entrails of the earth and night, soared skyward, irresistibly sweeping space. Cases of matches, barrels of oil and kerosene and alcohol fed the furnace. The fire progressed with lightning speed. And the fighting continued as before, the rivals tussling while the stifling circle closed in around them. Down the next street the knell was ringing. Seven separate fires were spreading an unbearable heat. Sovereign, invincible, the fire invested the area, swallowed building after building, street after street, racing to light the sun and the horizon.

  By its immensity, the fire assumed a divine role—gigantic, unpredictable, its very sight maddening. The town was toppling into illusion. Merchants and clerks, laborers and employers, girls and boys, all intermingled, young and old, killers and killed, murderers and victims, at once blinded and illuminated, fleeing in every direction, carried by the carrousel in flames. Expelled from time and nature, they seemed to float between sky and earth, between two burning walls. Some were roaring with laughter, others were embracing, still others abused one another, screaming in horror and also laughing in horror. A gentle-eyed woman tossed her infant into the flames, while another, filled with compassion, sang a lullaby. Shifra the Mourner ran to the cemetery to join her beloved husband in the grave. There she met Adam the Gravedigger, who asked for her help. “All my friends are dead, who will bury them? And who will bury us? God perhaps? Will God be our gravedigger?” The stableman Dogor grabbed his wife and swept her into a frenzied, savage dance. The priest and the Bishop, under the icons’ watchful eyes, in total disagreement on everything else, decided this was the time to debate orthodoxy and heresy. “It’s your fault,” shouted the lawyer. “Dirty Jew,” retorted his wife.

  “Go now,” said the official chronicler of the holy community of Kolvillàg. “Go, my son, the moment has come.” He did not explain, but I understood: it was now or never. The moment had come to leave, break out of the circle, slip outside; it was now or never. The moment had come to choose life. He gave me a strong push, and I had to obey. Clutching the thick notebook to my body, I left my father, I left Rivka, who had been a mother to me, I backed away from them so as to see them as long as possible. I went on seeing them, and now as I speak to you, I see them still.

  Meanwhile, caught up in the frenzy, the killers were killing each other, senselessly, with swords, hatchets and clubs. Brothers and sisters striking one another, friends and accomplices strangling one another. Few resisted, none protested. An extraordinarily vigorous dancer leapt high into the air, met the sword and fell to earth, decapitated. A young girl combed her tresses; a stranger pierced her chest.

  While backing away I experienced a double sensation, both odious and sublime. Flee, yes. Flee this setting fit only for cruel and grotesque gods. Jump off this merry-go-round before I find myself caught in the dizzying whirlwind; force myself, yes, force myself and save the Book.

  Ultimately it saved me.

  But nobody saved the Jews of Kolvillàg, or their assassins. When death reigns, no one is spared. When the avenging gods are human wolves, there can be no hope for man.

  I backed away, my wide-open eyes recording the last images of this town and this night. Moshe, in front of the prison, shaking his head as though acquiescing: Too late, too late. The Prefect crying: “But I want to save you, I want to! In spite of yourself!” Nearby, the carnage continues and so does the farce. And suddenly, in the center of the turmoil, I think I see Yancsi, that thug of a Yancsi whom fate has chosen as instrument. The sergeant catches him and squeezes him in his arms: “You are my whip, come let me hug you, my pet.” Moshe’s
mask crumbles and at last he bursts out laughing. Shifra the Mourner has ceased to cry and so has Kaizer the Mute. And all have ceased to live. Adam the Gravedigger recites the Kaddish for the dead, the living—and himself. Bewildered, dazed, mad with fear, horses and dogs chase one another in a race toward death, drowning out the sobs, the sneers and the lamentations. The earth splits in a thousand places and the houses tumble down. A reddish glow seen in a shattered mirror. I back away, clasping the Book to my heart; the farther back I am the more I remember, and the more I know what it contains.

  Ringed by the flames, the entire town was burning. The hovels and the shops, the parchments and the dead schoolboys. “Is it over, Grandfather?” Toli asked. “I hope so,” said the lawyer’s father. “And Grandfather, who will say Kaddish?” “Yitgadal veyitkadash shme raba,” recited Adam the Gravedigger, digging his own grave. “I should have sent her to her Uncle Peretz,” said Davidov, carrying his lifeless daughter on his shoulders, not knowing where to go or why. “You shall live in spite of yourself,” insisted the Prefect. “You must be joking. It is all over,” said Moshe. “All I want to do is cry, but I have forgotten how.”

  The town, in consuming itself, was telling a timeless story for the last time, and there was nobody to listen. Yiddel no longer smiles and Avrom no longer thinks. Whom are we fighting now? Shaike was asked. But he was already dead. The Book, said my father. The Herem, said Moshe. It’s my fault, but I was hungry, said Leizer the Fat. Memory, insisted my father, everything is in memory. Silence, Moshe corrected him, everything is in silence. I was stepping back and back, but the distance remained unchanged. The prey of death, the price of life: Kolvillàg was burning and I watched it burn. The House of Study, the trees and the walls—whipped by fire and wind. The cobblestones—shattered. The Jewish quarter, the churches and the schools, the store and the warehouses: yellow and red, orange and purple flames escaped from them, only to return at once. The shelter and the orphanage, the tavern and the synagogue joined by a bridge of fire. The cemetery was burning, the police station was burning, the cribs were burning, the library was burning. On that night man’s work yielded to the power and judgment of the fire. And suddenly I understood with every fiber of my being why I was shuddering at this vision of horror: I had just glimpsed the future.

  The Rebbe and his murderers, the sanctuary and its desecrators, the beggars and their stories, I trembled as I left them—left them, backing away. I saw them from afar, then I saw them no more. Only the fire still lived in what was once a town, mine. Charred dwellings. Charred corpses. Charred dreams and prayers and songs. Every story has an end, just as every end has a story. And yet, and yet. In the case of this city reduced to ashes, the two stories merge into one and remain a secret—such had been the will of my mad friend named Moshe, last prophet and first messiah of a mankind that is no more.

  “Day is breaking, you must leave,” said the old man.

  I had to shake myself. I was returning from far away. The noises of the city were so many wounds. Walk, die, survive. The sky turning white. The vague pain I could not situate or name. The feeling of bereavement. I closed my eyes. Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow is named Azriel.

  “Do you regret?” I asked him. “Do you regret having spoken?”

  “No. And you?”

  I smiled. “Why would I regret it?”

  “Because now, having received this story, you no longer have the right to die.”

  I said nothing. A chilling thought came to my mind: if I no longer had the right to die, he no longer had to go on living!

  Suddenly, I don’t know why, I felt like asking him not to send me away. I dared not. I dreaded his refusal as much as his consent. Instead I formulated a question that had been on my lips for some time: “Who is Moshe?”

  His eyes followed the night seeking refuge behind the horizon. For a moment I thought he was displeased and would not answer. But he surprised me.

  “You. I.” And he added half mockingly: “You when you open your eyes; I when I close mine.”

  With his hand he motioned me to go. I did not obey immediately. This sky lighting up. These streets filling with life. This town reawakening. Walk, die, survive. This new wound inside me—what had I gained in the exchange?

  “You must,” said Azriel.

  “I must what? Leave? Die? Begin anew?” I rose. We parted without shaking hands.

  Then the young man obediently returned home, and so did the old man. That undoubtedly explains why they never saw each other again: Azriel had returned to die in my stead, in Kolvillàg.

  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 Officer. In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University. He lives with his wife, Marion, and their son, Elisha, in New York City.

  BOOKS BY ELIE WIESEL

  ALL RIVERS RUN TO THE SEA

  This first volume of Wiesel’s memoirs recalls in intimate detail the experiences that shaped his life—from the small Carpathian village where he was born to the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald to his discovery of his calling as a writer and “Messenger to Mankind.”

  0-8052-1028-8 SCHOCKEN

  AND THE SEA IS NEVER FULL

  The concluding volume of Wiesel’s memoirs opens in 1969 as the author sets himself a challenge: “I will become militant. I will teach, share, bear witness. I will reveal and try to mitigate the victim’s solitude.” He makes words his weapons, and in these pages we watch as he meets with world leaders, returns to Auschwitz, and travels to regions ruled by war, dictatorship, and racism in order to engage the most pressing issues of our day.

  0-8052-1029-6 SCHOCKEN

  A BEGGAR IN JERUSALEM

  In the days following the Six-Day War, a Holocaust survivor visits the reunited city of Jerusalem. At the Western Wall he encounters the beggars and madmen who congregate there every evening, and who force him to confront the ghosts of his past and his ties to the present.

  0-8052-1052-0 SCHOCKEN

  THE FIFTH SON

  When the son of a Holocaust prisoner discovers his brooding father has been haunted by his role in a murder of a brutal S.S. officer just after the war, the son also discovers that the Nazi is still alive. What begins as a quest for his father’s love becomes a reenactment of the past, as the son sets out to complete his father’s act of revenge.

  0-8052-1083-0 SCHOCKEN

  THE FORGOTTEN

  A distinguished psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor is losing his memory to an incurable disease. Never having spoken of the war years before, he resolves to tell his son about his past—the heroic parts as well as the parts that fill him with shame—before it is too late.

  0-8052-1019-9 SCHOCKEN

  FROM THE KINGDOM OF MEMORY

  The essays and speeches collected here include reminiscences of Wiesel’s life before the Holocaust and his struggle to find meaning afterward, his impassioned testimony at the Klaus Barbie trial, his plea to President Reagan not to visit a German S.S. cemetery, and his speech in acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.

  0-8052-1020-2 SCHOCKEN

  THE GATES OF THE FOREST

  A young Jew hiding from the Nazis in the forests and small towns of Eastern Europe allows another refugee to sacrifice himself in his stead. As he struggles with his guilt, one question recurs: How to live in a world that God has abandoned?

  0-8052-1044-x SCHOCKEN

  A JEW TODAY

  In this powerful collection of essays, letters, and diary entries, Wiesel probes such central moral and political issues as Zionism and the Middle East conflict, anti-Semitism in the former U.S.S.R., the obligations of American Jews toward Israel, and the media’s treatmen
t of the Holocaust.

  0-394-74057-2 VINTAGE

  THE OATH

  A Christian boy disappears from a village in the Carpathian Mountains and the Jews are accused of ritual murder. They gather and swear that whoever survives the pogrom that is certain to follow will never speak of what has happened. But fifty years later, when the sole survivor meets a man whose life might be saved by hearing what had been promised to silence, the survivor is forced to make a heartwrenching decision.

  0-8052-0808-9 SCHOCKEN

  THE TESTAMENT

  On August 12, 1952, Russia’s greatest Jewish writers were secretly executed by Stalin. In this novel, poet Paltiel Kossover meets the same fate but, unlike his historical counterparts, he is permitted to leave behind a written testament. Two decades later, Paltiel’s son reads this precious record and finds that it illuminates the shadowed planes of his own life.

  0-8052-1115-2 SCHOCKEN

  THE TOWN BEYOND THE WALL

  Based on Wiesel’s own life, this is the story of a young Holocaust survivor who returns to his hometown after the liberation, seeking to understand the mystery of what he calls “the face in the window”—the symbol of all those who just stood by and watched as innocent men, women, and children were led to the slaughter.

  0-8052-1045-8 SCHOCKEN

  THE TRIAL OF GOD

  When three itinerant actors arrive in a small Eastern European village to perform a Purim play for the Jewish community, they are horrified to discover that all but two of the Jewish residents have been murdered in a recent pogrom. The actors decide to stage a mock trial of God, indicting Him for allowing such things to happen to His children.

  0-8052-1053-9 SCHOCKEN

  TWILIGHT

  The story of a man whose search for a friend who saved him during the Holocaust leads him to question the very meaning of survival, this novel of memory, loss, and madness resonates with the dramatic upheavals of our century.