The Oath

Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:When a Christian boy disappears in a fictional Eastern European town in the 1920s, the local Jews are quickly accused of ritual murder. There is tension in the air and a pogrom threatens to erupt. Suddenly, an extraordinary man�??Moshe the dreamer, a madman and mystic�??steps forward and confesses to a crime he did not commit, in a vain attempt to save his people from certain death. The community gathers to hear his last words�??a plea for silence�??and everyone present takes an oath: whoever survives the impending tragedy must never speak of the town�??s last days and nights of terror. For fifty years the sole survivor keeps his oath�??until he meets a man whose life depends on hearing the story, and one man�??s loyalty to the dead confronts head-on another�??s reason to go on living. One of Wiesel�??s strongest early novels, this timeless parable about the Jews and their enemies, about hate, family, friendship, and silence, is as powerful, haunting, and significant as it was wh… (more)