Memory serves as the predominant theme in the novel. Elhanan believes that the memory of the rape disrupts his memory, preventing him from honoring his heroic father, also named Malkiel.
Elhanan believes that his loss of memory hinders him from keeping alive his father and other Holocaust victims and thus from obeying God. The memory of the dead, especially those who perished during the Shoah, is sacred. When he sends Malkiel to Romania, he insists that the son keep the memory of the massacres at Feherfalu locked inside his mind forever.
Speaking of the victims who had once been his neighbors and friends, Elhanan says to Malkiel, "Remember, my son.
Without even knowing it, I must have walked across their graves."
Jewish mysticism is another important theme in The Forgotten. Hershel, the.....
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