Dehumanization In Eliezer Wiesel's Night

Mass murdering, massacres, and human suffering are all something that we are familiar with; whether this familiarity is from a personal experience or something we learned from a book or movie. This concept is all living within us in the back of our heads, setting up camp for the long haul. The short story from Night by Elie Wiesel is about a family that gets taken to a concentration camp in the midst of a genocide. The family faces intolerance just because of their Jewish heritage and religion. This intolerance and genocide is relevant in today's world. No, nobody is trying to take over the world and kill half the human population while doing it. This intolerance and possible genocide is occurring because we are doing it to ourselves. The short story from Night by Elie Wiesel connects to the world issue of abrupt climate change through the noun “genocide”; like the Jews being mass murdered by the Nazis, the whole human species will be obliterated by mother nature if we don’t take crucial environmental steps and focus on science and technology.

Concentration camps are similar to the things people see their nightmares. The creation of a twisted government that spread hatred and suffering throughout the world. Night is an in depth account of the atrocities committed in these horrible places. The story of dehumanization of an entire group of people through the eyes of a young boy,Elie Wiesel. In Night Wiesel portrays the dehumanization of the jewish people as unnatural and undeserved. The difficulties Wiesel went through are all collected in one small book

Another way the Germans dehumanized the Jews was by taking away all of their belongings. Some of these items they could live without, but they definitely did not realize how much they took them for granted. Lastly, the Jews were given numbers instead of their names. As the novel claimed, “The three “veteran” prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name” (Wiesel 42). This act of taking away the Jews names and replacing them with numbers is an inhumane act which is dehumanizing towards them. People do not realize that something as simple as a name can have so much meaning until it is taken away. Therefore, the Germans stripped the Jews of everything that resembled a past life, which was dehumanizing.

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.

The concentration camps from World War II are part of a painful and tragic incident that we have learned about in school for many years. And while we are taught the facts, we may not fully understand the emotional impact it had upon the humans involved. Upon reading Night by Elie Wiesel, readers are given vivid descriptions of the gruesome and tragic behaviors that the Jews were forced to endure inside he treacherous concentration camps. Among all of the cruelties that the Jews were exposed to, a very significant form of the callous behaviors was the demoralization of the prisoners. Each inmate was given a tattoo of a number, and that tattoo became their new identity within the camp. Every prisoner was presented with tattered uniforms that became

There are people crowded, shoulder to shoulder, expecting a shower and to feel water raining down their bodies. Sighs of relief turn into screams of terror as innocent people are gasping for their last breaths of air inside of the gas chamber. This was a daily occurrence for Jewish and other people involved in the Holocaust. This was just one horrific event of many that had happened to women, men and children. Some of the survivors have used their voice to speak out about their own background during their time spent in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Elie Wiesel, author of the book Night, is one of the many who did so. Wiesel talks about his personal experience and shares his feelings, thoughts and emotions that he went through with others during the Holocaust.

Eliezer was dehumanized numerous times throughout his imprisonment in the Constitution camp during the Holocaust starting in Spring 1944. For example, Eliezer disappeared to search for food and to see a glimpse of Idek and a young Polish girl. Idek decides to punish him so Eliezer will not tell anyone and gives him 25 lashes. “...twenty-five!”’ “I had not realized it, but I had fainted.” (58). Clearly, Eliezer is dehumanized because he didn’t do anything to provoke Idek. While Eliezer is working in the warehouse he crosses paths with Idek who “threw himself on me like a wild beast” beating Eliezer until he was covered in blood. (53). Eliezer did not commit a crime but in Idek’s mind he did which gives Idek the right to punish Eliezer. Eliezer

“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.

Twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel spends much time on Jewish mysticism. His instructor, Moshe the Beadle, returns from a near-death experience and warns that Nazi aggressors will soon threaten the serenity of their lives. Even when the family and Elie were pushed to ghettos they remained calm and compliant. In spring, authorities begin shipping trainloads of Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. In a cattle car, eighty villagers can hardly move and have to survive on minimal food and water.

The human race has always struggled with the simple task of being humane. This started with the people killing over land, all the way to terrible events, such as the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel does a great job in his book, Night, talking about some of the things the Nazis did. The Nazis treated the Jewish people in the most inhumane way history has ever seen. The book approaches this just by throwing it directly in one’s face. Elie has a lot to say about humanity and inhumanity, as does Morrie Schwartz. Morrie is a Professor at Brandeis University and does a great job explaining why humanity should overcome inhumanity. Both Elie and Morrie agree that humanity and inhumanity were both very big things in their lifetime and humanity can be achieved through love, and concern for others.

One day, when Elie returned from the warehouse, he was summoned by the block secretary to go to the dentist. Elie therefore went to the infirmary block to learn that the reason for his summon was gold teeth extraction. Elie, however pretends to be sick and asks, ”Couldn’t you wait a few days sir? I don’t feel well, I have a fever…” Elie kept telling the dentist that he was sick for several weeks to postpone having the crown removed. Soon after, it had appeared that the dentist had been dealing in the prisoners’ gold teeth for his own benefit. He had been thrown into prison and was about to be hanged. Eliezer does not pity for him and was pleased with what was happening

In Elie Wiesel’s autobiography, “Night” there are many examples of dehumanization from start to finish. Dehumanization is stripping a person of every quality that makes them human. This includes their identity, individuality, and soul. The Night shows the process by which the Nazis reduced the Jews to little more than “things” which were a nuisance to them. The book takes place in World War 2, in the Holocaust. Eliezer and his family are very much directly affected by actions taken by the Nazis as well as all the other Jews. Throughout the whole book, the Nazis use practices such as beatings, starvation, theft of possessions, separation of families, crude murders, forced labor, and many more actions represented through the text of this book that are all examples of dehumanization. Eliezer, the narrator of the story, arrived at the concentration camp of Auschwitz when he was fifteen years old. He arrived by the transportation of cattle cars. Within the various camps, Eliezer spent ten months of abuse and dehumanization. He lost so much due to the Germans.

Elie Wiesel’s book Night, tells what he went through and what was going on in the concentration camps. He was one of the few that made it out of the camps, and he suffered through all of the bad doings of Hitler and his men. This book gives many examples that show how Elie and the other Jews were dehumanized by being treated as something less than a human.

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

One thing that the Nazis did was once the Jewish people arrived at the camps they were given tattooed numbers and those numbers were there new names. Instead of being called by their names they were now identified by their numbers. “ In the afternoon we were made to line up.Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments.With the left sleeve rolled up, each person passed in front of a table. The three ‘veterans’ with needles in their hand engraved a number on our left arms.I became A-7713. After that I had no other name” (39).The Jews were no longer by there names but by their names to show that they are weak and have no right to have a name. The Jews having number to replace their names was one of the ways the Jews were dehumanized.