Elie Wiesel's Work

The work and message of Auschwitz survivor, writer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) represent an outstanding, unique, and highly significant contribution to Holocaust remembrance and the fight against anti-Semitism. Elie Wiesel has had a lasting international impact on the culture of remembrance from the 1950s to the present day. Only through scholarly analysis can Elie Wiesel's work and message be made accessible to present and future generations and put to good use in shaping a transforming culture of remembrance and combating the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany.

To this end, the Elie Wiesel Research Center at the University of Tübingen, with funding from the Baden-Württemberg Foundation, has compiled and published this comprehensive bibliography (PDF) as the only institute in the world directly and exclusively engaged in researching the work of Elie Wiesel.

Sources

With the aim of compiling a complete bibliography, or one that is as complete as possible, the relevant but now outdated bibliographies by Molly Abramowitz (1974), Iriving Abrahamson (1985), and Betty Bigelbach (1988) were evaluated for the first time, along with the so-called BU Inventory. This inventory was kept by Elie Wiesel's personal assistant during his time at Boston University and was intended exclusively for internal use. Accordingly, it has never been published and was only handed over to Reinhold Boschki for the first time in 2019 during his research trips to Boston and research in the Elie Wiesel Archive, as well as thanks to his good personal contacts with Elischa Wiesel. The BU inventory was critically reviewed for the creation of the complete bibliography and transferred into a scientific system. Any missing bibliographic details on individual titles were supplemented by our own research. Furthermore, extensive research was carried out in the Elie Wiesel Archive, the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, and the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Structure

The complete bibliography, arranged chronologically and alphabetically within the chronology, covers the period from 1956 to 2021 and is divided into two main sections. The first part lists all of Elie Wiesel's identified and attested publications, beginning with his debut work, the autobiographical Yiddish survival account ...un di velt hot geshvign, which was later condensed into Wiesel's best-known publication, the memoir and testimony Night. Accordingly, the bibliography begins with Wiesel's autobiographies and then gradually turns to Wiesel's literary writings, such as novels and plays, his biblical-Talmudic-Hasidic writings, and his essays, ending with Wiesel's journalistic work, such as speeches, interviews, and open letters. The second main section contains a comprehensive and up-to-date list of specialist literature. The bibliography is continuously being expanded and does not currently claim to be exhaustive.

Perspective

In the long term, a complete digital bibliography and an Elie Wiesel portal are to be created in collaboration with the University Library of Tübingen, Dr. Alan Rosen, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, and the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies. To this end, Elie Wiesel's printed and handwritten source material will be scanned in high quality, cataloged, transcribed from Yiddish or Hebrew where necessary, and made publicly available, not only to further the quality of research, but also to preserve Elie Wiesel's message for future generations and to support the development of a digital culture of remembrance. The Elie Wiesel Research Center is currently working on evaluating the archives of the Hebrew-language magazine Jedioth Aharonot and the Yiddish-language magazine Zion im Kampf, for example. Elie Wiesel's early letters have been completely overlooked and unanalyzed until now, in particular the approximately 1,200 letters to the publisher of Jedioth Aharonot, Dow Judkowski, one of his closest colleagues and friends, with whom he exchanged ideas about the genesis of his early works.