Mirroring Exile
Exilic Memory as a Creative Force – Lessons from Elie Wiesel and Abraham Shayer
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7173092 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Li Shir (0009-0007-7873-0125, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 15 (2025 |
| Pages | 161-180 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-31 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Word and Text - A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2069-9271 • E-ISSN: 2247-9163 |
| Publisher | Universitatea Petrol-Gaze din Ploiesti (PUBLISHER • RO) |
| DOI | 10.51865/jlsl.2025.10 |
| OpenAlex | W7108317066 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 16 |
This article explores Elie Wiesel’s concept of ‘memory in exile’ as a post-Holocaust mnemonic model that integrates an embodied, affective dimension into Astrid Erll’s ‘travelling memory’. I argue that Wiesel’s exilic model challenges place-bound models – such as Aristotle’s topoi or Pierre Nora’s lieux de mémoire – by foregrounding portable forms of remembering as a dynamic and creative force. Rooted in Jewish thought, Wiesel’s model reflects exile’s dialectical nature – both a destructive rupture and a catalyst for regeneration. To illustrate these dual processes, I examine texts and artifacts by my grandfather, Abraham Shayer, a Jewish Polish refugee who survived the Holocaust in Soviet exile. I focus on enigmatic mirrors he created as material manifestations of Wiesel’s exilic memory model. Drawing on Leona Toker’s methodology of intercontextual reading, I analyse Abraham’s unfinished memoir and Holocaust artefacts alongside Wiesel’s testimonial oeuvre, shedding light on the mnemonic and creative processes involved in bearing witness
Dialectic · Foregrounding · Forgetting · Memoir · Mirroring · Mnemonic · Scholarship · Testimonial · The Holocaust · Literature and Cultural Memory · Memory, History, Trauma, Identity · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration
| Highly cited | No |
|---|