Dehumanization In Elie Wiesel's Night

The novel Night by Elie Wiesel tells a devastating tale of a young man in concentration camp in World War II. Concentration camps were used in World War II to dehumanize and terrorize Jews. Dehumanization is the act of depriving humans of their rights and treating them as if they were worse than animals. Humans had been fighting for so long to get equality for everyone, but then Hitler rose to power and undid the work society had done. Many examples of how World War II used dehumanization were Hitler and his actions, leaving family members behind, and the labor camps in themselves.

In Elie Wiesel’s Night, imagery is employed to show the dehumanization of the Jewish people by the Nazis as the Jews develop the “survival of the fittest” mentality, and as Eliezer looses the ability to express emotions. Wiesel uses imagery of the Jews’ “survival of the fittest” mentality to show the dehumanization of the Jews who are forced to endure treacherous conditions in the concentration camps. The enslaved Jews experience the worst forms of inhumane treatment. Pushed beyond their ability to deal with the oppressing starvation, cold, disease, exhaustion, and cruelty, the Jews lose their sanity and morality. Thus, Wiesel refers to the Jews as, “wild beasts of prey with animal hatred

In Elie Wiesel’s novel Night, Wiesel writes about the experiences of Eliezer, his family, and fellow Jews, he explained how the Nazis gradually changes the way the Jews lived little by little. Dehumanization is the process of stripping a person of every quality that makes him human and changing them to fit their needs. Dehumanizing started when Eliezer and other Jews in his community are evacuated from their homes in Sighet. They were transported in cattle cars which related the Jews to no more than livestock. After the harsh transportation the Jews arrived at Auschwitz a concentration camp where Eliezer spent many months of his life. They were whipped, ran, and starved till some of the Jews could not take it. In Elie Wiesel book he explains how he found the stamina to survive these cruel conditions.

Dehumanization is the act of taking one’s human qualities away from them, this can be done using voice and also using actions. During the time of the Holocaust, the Nazi’s used their power to abuse and dehumanize the Jewish people. They would beat and kill them, they would yell at them and they stripped the Jews of their dignity and rights. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, one recurring theme is the dehumanization of the Jews. Throughout Night by Elie Wiesel, one can see the theme of dehumanization through the way the Nazi’s treated the Jews, spoke to the Jews, and how the Jews treated one another.

Night is a book written by Elie Wiesel. In this book Wiesel tells about his experiences in the Holocaust. Wiesel was only twelve years old when the Holocaust first affected him. Early on Wiesel was separated from his mother and sister. Him and his father were then moved from camp to camp having to endure harsh conditions. Together they both saw terrible things that they will never forget. Many conflicts in The Holocaust changed both Wiesel and his father. The two factors that affected Wiesel the most was him having to indirectly face the entire Nazi society and his believe and trust in God.

In Night a memoir by Elie Wiesel, he uses imagery, simile, and connotation to demonstrate the effects of dehumanization and what affect it has on people.

Dehumanization in the novel Night, is shown through the actions observed by Elie Wiesel. One example is when he first arrives to Auschwitz and gets a number tattooed on himself, in which it robs the humanity and identification of him. Another example is when the selection process of prisoners is shown either between being healthy or not. So, if the person was deemed sick or unhealthy they would be sent to the gas chambers because the S.S. officers had no use for them anymore.

Dehumanization was a big part of the book night. Dehumanization had a big impact on Elie, it destroyed the person he once was. “The child I was, had been consumed. All that was left was a shape that resembled me” (Wiesel 37). Elie is showing how he was being dehumanized. Another person that was affected by dehumanization was Elie’s father, his father no longer looks like the same person anymore.

The Holocaust was a horrific time period when over six million Jewish people were systematically exterminated by the Nazi government. Throughout this period, the Jews were treated particularly inhumane because the Nazi viewed their ethnicities as a disease to humanity. Dehumanization is a featured theme in Elie Wiesel’s novel about the Holocaust since he demonstrated numerous examples of the severe conditions endured by the Jewish people. The nonfiction story Night by Elie Wiesel focuses on inhumanity and reveals human beings are capable of committing great atrocities and behaving cruelly, when such actions are condoned by society, peer pressure, and ethical beliefs. Elie Wiesel uses literary devices to produce a consistent theme of inhumanity.

Dehumanization played a significant role throughout Elie Wiesel's "Night". In many historic references to the Holocaust the killing of the Jews were described as "methodical and systematical"(The Jewish Outreach Institute), though this is true, these heinous crimes were made even worse by the dehumanizing and appalling treatment and conditions that the Jews were put through. Here are some examples:

Dehumanization played a big role in the holocaust the Nazis reduced the Jews from living human beings to objects and numbers. “Night” by Elie Wiesel published in 1958. In the novel “Night” is about Elie and his time in a concentration camp and how he survived the holocaust. Being separated from his mother and sisters and only left with his father.Dehumanization the process in which the Nazis reduced the Jews from people to objects and numbers.

An example of Dehumanization was shown in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. In the book it follows him throughout his experiences in the holocaust showing in detail how dehumanization took place in his experiences. Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazis controlled, tortured, and deindividualized the jews and many others.

One of the most widely known examples of dehumanization is exhibited during the Holocaust. About six million Jewish people and five million non-Jewish people were murdered during the persecution ordered by the Nazi regime. Only one third of the Jewish population survived, and of that included Elie Wiesel. Wiesel, a Nobel-prize winning activist, wrote his memoir Night which goes in depth into what Wiesel experienced during his time in the concentration camps. The excessive dehumanization from the Nazi regime further caused the prisoners to treat themselves and others like animals.

Dehumanization Imagine being considered and treated as less than human. You no longer have your human rights- perhaps your house is taken away, or you are forcibly relocated. Or maybe, your freedom and your identity are taken away from you. You are no longer treated like a person, now more like an animal. These cruel acts of dehumanization are present frequently in the novel, Night by Elie Wiesel.

Throughout Night, dehumanization consistently took place as the tyrant Nazis oppressed the Jewish citizens. The Nazis targeted the Jews' humanity, and slowly dissolved their feeling of being human. This loss of humanity led to a weakened will in the Holocaust victims, and essentially led to death in many. The Nazis had an abundance of practices to dehumanize the Jews including beatings, starvation, theft of possessions, separation of families, crude murders, forced labor, and much more. There is no greater loss than that of humanity, so one can never truly relate to the horrors of dehumanization the Jews faced. In the list below, I will compile various examples that correlate to this theme of dehumanization.