Never Shall I Forget

As the poem is short and expresses the personal emotions of Elie Wiesel, “Never Shall I Forget” qualifies as a lyric. It’s also a part of Holocaust literature—that is, the sizable canon of memoirs, novels, and poems that confront the Nazi genocide. Arguably, Wiesel’s lyric is also a confessional poem. The genre took hold in the mid-20th century, with poets such as Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, and Anne Sexton writing intimate poems about their battles with issues like mental health. In confessional poems, the speaker is usually the author—or the author’s poetic persona—with the author using the poem to express their intense feelings. Wiesel is the speaker of his poem. The experiences and emotions belong to him, not to a dispassionate speaker. He combines the personal with the historical, confessing to the reader how the Holocaust keenly impacted his life, faith, and individuality.

The poem’s tone is indignant and mournful, and it centers on the literary device of anaphora, using the repeated words “Never shall I forget” at the beginning of multiple lines—seven out of the poem’s 13—to stress the deadly inhumanity of the Holocaust.