The Oath

Rating:
Summary: An Incredible Testimony
Review: "The Oath" sets out to tell the story of the town of Kolvillag, a Jewish community that no longer exists and no one remembers. Exactly what hapened in that town has been repressed and kept a secret by any of those who survived. They will be cursed if they talk about the fateful events that happened in Kolvillag. Yet there is one survivor, Azriel, who finds that he must tell this story, even if it goes against the oath.

Wiesel's story unfolds in the very beginning, as a dialogue of sorts between Azriel and a young man who is ready to take his own life. This "dialogue" is somewhat confusing at first, as the reader is not sure whom is speaking which lines. Azriel is affronted by this man's desire to take his life, an action that goes directly agains the Talmud and the Jewish faith, and he believes the story of Kolvillag may save this young man. He therefore tells the story of his master and mentor, Moshe, the madman of Kolvillag. In the 1920s, a Christian boy is found murdered and the Christians in the community begin to spread rumors, and then to believe these rumors, that the Jews are responsible. (The term Christian could easily fall into quotation marks since it only implies ethnicity, not action; for the actions of these men are hardly Christian.) In order to preserve and protect the Jews, Moshe decides to take the fall and admit to the murder of a young boy he has never met. He hopes that his action will appease those who oppose the Jews. How wrong he turns out to be. The Christians, hungry for blood, might not be satisfied with the blood of one; they might demand the blood of all.

Wiesel is a master storyteller, weaving his faith so artfully with his fiction that "The Oath" reads as a factual event. Perhaps it is because it describes the seemingly endless plight of Jews and the persecution they have endured for generations. The holocaust of Kolvillag is the precursor for the Holocaust of World War II. Wiesel's words are often profound and philosophical and are rooted deeply in faith and tradition. "The Oath" is an incredible story of the ties that bind us to our faith and traditions, and how hard it is to break those ties; it is even more incredible for the very possibility that Kolvillag (or a town just like it) actually existed at one time.