Dehumanization In Elie Wiesel's Night

The Jews all started the same before they began their journey through the camps. They were normal; they had their own communities,religion, and jobs. None of them came out of the camps ,even if they did make it as most didn’t , the same: “In the early dawn light, I tried to distinguish between the living and those who were no more. But there was barely a difference (Wiesel 98).” The conditions and bad treatment caused Wiesel and many others to forget themselves and only remember their instincts: “One day when we had come to a stop, a worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest (Wiesel 100).”

Imagine, losing the part of you that makes you unique, or being treated like you were worth absolutely nothing. Think about losing all that you hold on to: your family, friends, everything that you had. Imagine, being treated like an animal, or barely receiving enough food to live. All of these situations and more is what the Jews went through during the Holocaust. During the period of 1944 - 1945, a man by the name of Elie Wiesel was one of the millions of Jews that were experiencing the wrath of Hitler’s destruction in the form of intense labor and starvation. The novel Night written by the same man, Elie Wiesel, highlights the constant struggle they faced every single day during the war. From the first acts of throwing the Jews into

“He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized.” Elie and his family just wanted to live a normal life. They didn’t have very much money, but were happy with the state they were in. One day, SS officers showed up and took Elie and his family away. Not knowing where they were going, they were obviously scared. Once they finally got there, they realized what they were in for, and that Moishe the Beadle was right. In Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, the German Army dehumanizes Elie Wiesel and the rest of the Jewish prisoners by depriving them of love, safety, and physiological needs.

At this point, the Jews are very comfortable and go so far as to recognize

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald writes “He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized”. This idea of how people could become almost unimaginably cruel due to dehumanization corresponds with the Jews experience in the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the ruthless massacre of Jewish people, and other people who were consider to be vermin to the predetermined Aryan race in the 1940s. One holocaust survivor and victim was Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of Night. Wiesel was one of the countless people to go through the horrors of the concentration camps, which dehumanized people down to their animalistic nature, an echo of their previous selves. Dehumanization worsens over time

Dehumanization took many different forms during the holocaust and you saw multiple examples of these forms in Night. One of the first things that would take place is the Nazis taking the identity of the Jews away. The Jews would have to get numbers tattooed into their left arm, no longer calling them by their first name or surname, but by the random, Nazi chosen number inscripted into them by a dirty, old tattoo gun. Everyone got a tattoo. Everyone also got their hair cut short by an old, dull, dirty razor that hadn't been cleaned in who knows how long and had cut countless others had before them. This made gender identification difficult by just looking since they had women and men separated a lot of the time. Which leads to the separation of families.

The prisoners are on the train being transported to a new camp. They are going through German towns, and are starving. The German workers begin to observe the train go by, and one man throws a piece of bread at them. As the piece of bread lands in the train cart, Wiesel describes the prisoners as “beasts of the prey unleashed, animal hate in their eyes” (Wiesel 101). The metaphor stated compares the prisoners to savages because of their cruel behavior. The author also describes the competition between the prisoners for the piece of bread which symbolizes hope for the possibility of remaining alive. Humanity is vicious and will do anything for a chance to survive. The look in the prisoners eyes signifies an intense hatred, and competition between everyone aboard the train. The men are using all energy they have to get the piece of bread, and they will kill anyone who can destroy their chance of survival. Wiesel describes their beast-like actions as “an extraordinary vitality [possessing] them, sharpening their teeth and nails” (101). The hyperbolic statement is used to exaggerate humanity’s animal-like instincts. This exaggeration represents savagery because its describing them by using the actions of beasts. Wiesel writes this to depict a stronger idea in human’s main goal to survive. The uncivilized actions not only causes the deaths of several passengers, but makes the men ravenous

There are many things in history that people do not know about. Most do not think about what happened in the past to get them to where they are now. Between five to six million Jews were killed in the a Holocaust. The exact amount is not known because some were killed in the concentration camps and some were killed in their own homes(Holocaust A Call To Conscience). In the book Night by Elie Wiesel the Jews had to go through dehumanization, adapt to countless different things, but they also went through a psychological change because of the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a genocide where many European Jews were killed because of Adolf Hitler. The question I will be answering now is why the Holocaust important, and why it should not be forgotten.

Night written by Elie Wiesel is a first-hand account of the mass genocide, discrimination, and segregation of Jews by Nazi Germany. It’s a powerful testament to what people can bring themselves to do when they refuse to see the humanity in others. An example of this dehumanization is how workers would throw bread into the cattle cars that were transferring starving Jews in between concentration camps just to watch them kill over it. Crowds of workers came to observe and...“Soon, pieces of bread were falling into the wagons from all sides. And the spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread” (page 101). The spectators alienate them ‘they would kill over a simple piece of bread, what

Elie Wiesel once said that “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.” The Nazi Party; however, impose themselves over people of Jewish race and faith through their use of dehumanization. Through the holocaust death camps, the SS belittle the Jewish people, and set them to the level of livestock animals. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, Wiesel depicts of the unrivaled extent of dehumanization the holocaust prisoners are oppressed by, primarily displayed through the animalistic treatment of the prisoners throughout their time in the camp, the lack of humane nutrition provided to the prisoners, and the removal of the prisoners very identity by replacing their names with

Dehumanization was the process the Nazi’s used to reduce Jews to a little more than just “things”. This process was seen used many times during the holocaust, causing many Jews to give up while in the camps. Night shows a lot of examples of dehumanization. Many examples were when the Jews were forced to gaze upon the death of innocent children. Elie gives a good example of this by saying, “Yes, I did see this with my own eyes. . . Children thrown into the flames”(32). As he stated, he saw the children being thrown into the fire, this would likely traumatize anyone who would have seen it. The Nazis would also beat the Jew’s. Elie makes a statement of one morning when he awoke. Elie says, “Around Five O’Clock in the morning we were expelled from

“ He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible only dehumanization” (Scott Fitzgerald). “Night” written by Elie Wiesel published 1960. This memoir was very sad it showed lots of anti-semitism hatred against Jews it showed how it was back then. Elie really showed us the emotion in words he really put the action in words that harder then what it sounds. Dehumanization were a nazi treats a Jew like they are nothing it makes them less than what they really are.

Within a few nights of Wiesel being in the concentration camp his humanity was lost. The Commando in charge of Wiesel and his father’s unit was unable to view them as fellow human beings. The Commando felt justified in beating them. The “gypsy” degraded Wiesel's father and turned him into the animal he was seen as by the prison guards, beat him until he crawled on all fours.

Elie purposes in writing “Night” is so people who were not around during the time or even were, know just exactly what the Jews went through. They were killed for being to old or young. The Jews were killed for being female. they were given small ration of food , soup and bread. The Jews were beaten to death. Some were forced to kill there own friends and family with the crematories. Elie also wrote this to show people that actually happen , that it was not made up. The Jews were dehumanized by beating treated like slaves and animals while in the camps. Universal Declaration of Human rights (1948), all humans beings are born with equal and inalienable rights and fundamental freedom. The United Nations has stated in clear and simple terms

Dehumanization and brutality first appears when they first leave for the camp on the train. Once they get on the train, they were told that if one person were to go missing, “they will be shot” (24). Not only would they just be shot, but they would be “shot, like dogs’ (24). The SS officers were putting them against each other, choosing their own life was worth more than the lives of the other Jews. Furthermore, they were dehumanized by being separated by gender. “Men to the left! Women to the right!” (29), these words rang in Elie’s ears. For Elie, “that was the moment when [he] left [his] mother” (29). Separating them was separating families as well. The “eight simple, short words” (29), Elie heard struck his whole