Mirroring Exile: Exilic Memory as a Creative Force – Lessons from Elie Wiesel and Abraham Shayer
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: 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.
Author: Li Shir
Institution: Beit Berl College
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7108317066