Free From the Kingdom of Memory by Elie Wiesel

future. In Communist terms this meant, Down with the past, down with religion. One must be freed from all that recalls tradition: the holidays, the customs, the laws, the songs and dreams of the past. The rabbis, the sages, the ancient philosophers must yield their place to the heralds of modern socialism. Like everyone, Markish is taken in. His writings of this period praise the Communists and condemn allwho are not. He is hard on Jewish landlords, employers, and notables—excessively hard. And yet, several years later he is nevertheless taken to task by the political watchdogs of the party who criticize him for portraying only Jews … and then,
unlike
everyone else, he refuses to bend. He defends himself and perseveres. It is as a Jew—as a Jewish poet and as a Jewish writer—that he expresses his universal aspirations.
    Is this why he leaves the Soviet Union in the 1920s? He goes to Berlin, to Warsaw, and visits Palestine. With Uri Zvi Grinberg and Meilekh Ravitch he founds
Khalastra
, a review bursting with vigor, freshness, and impertinence. He reveals himself everywhere as a brilliant and spellbinding lecturer. He challenges established ideas, unsettles all that appears secure. He questions everything. Ilya Ehrenburg describes him as a Jewish Byron, anxious, romantic, and possessed of a beauty that made one dream. He could stay in the West and build a career. What he wants, he gets. The people acclaim him; he is quoted everywhere. His humor is appealing. His courage in breaking with the traditional lyricism of Jewish poetry is praised. He triumphs. And nevertheless … he returns to the Soviet Union.
    Why? A premonition of the rise of Nazism? He senses that Western Europe is collapsing, he foresees the destruction of the Jewish communities of Poland. He is too much of a poet not to be a little bit of a prophet as well. In Russia a sort of Jewish cultural renaissanceis taking place. He publishes reviews and books in Yiddish. He teaches classes and gives lessons. Around him one finds Kvitko and Hofstein, Halkin and Feffer, and, of course, on stage, dominating them all, the great Shlomo Mikhoels. Ah, yes, one easily understands how a Jewish poet succumbs to this attention. One understands his wish to be among them.
    A ND WHY NOT say it? On the surface, Markish seems to be right. The Order of Lenin is bestowed on him. Writing in Yiddish must therefore be something important. The Stalin-Hitler pact? A passing episode. For the Jews, the war against Nazi Germany is the occasion for a full mobilization of forces to participate in the national and international struggle. One must read what Markish writes on the Warsaw Ghetto, on Jewish history in general, and above all, on the war against the Jews. One must read what he wrote about his own times to understand the grandeur of his soul and the profound nature of his pain.
    After the war, Markish is never the same. The Communist in him lives in the shadow of the Jew that he is, and whose destiny he wants to fully assume to the end. He appears to be more closed, more solitary. His poetic meditations rejoin the prophetic, classic lyricism of his distant precursors. He writes a long poem, “The Man of Forty.” He spends more time with his son Simon. He takes account of what is happeningaround him: his friends and companions are being arrested. Soon it will be his turn.
    On the morning of January 27, 1949, they come knocking on his door.
    We know nothing of what happened afterward. How did he live in prison? What did he say to his judges and torturers? What songs did he compose in
his
night? I would give much to find out. Could I have created Paltiel Kossover to share his solitude?
    N OTE:
In 1989 I asked President Mikhail Gorbachev to posthumously rehabilitate Peretz Markish and the other Jewish writers executed under Stalin. In the spirit of
glasnost,
that request was granted
.

Dialogues
1. A CHILD AND HIS GRANDFATHER .
    Long ago, I taught you fervor
.
    I remember.
    And