Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

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

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.

Jews were discriminated during this time. They were treated unfairly. An example of how they were treated is from the book, “every jew had to wear a yellow star.” ( Wiesel, 11) They wore this because the Nazis wanted to single them out because of who they were. When they were in concentration camps, the prisoners had to shave their head bald and dress in rags. “ He ultimate affront to their identity was replacing of every prisoner’s name with a number.” ( The Guardian) Their own identities were taken away. “Hitler’s racial notions were implemented by measures that increasingly excluded jews from German society.” ( Holocaust Denial) Adolf HItler and the Nazi party were anti-semitic toward jews. That means

Greater than any war, plague, or catastrophe and it’s potential damage to human life is beyond calculation, the feeling of dehumanization is a feeling beyond description. Elie Wiesel a Jew Holocaust survivor from Sighet, Transylvania writes a memoir Night. In his memoir he writes about his own experiences in 1944 during the holocaust. Throughout this story Elie goes through lots of challenges that ultimately challenge his faith as a human. In resemblance, Jakob Blankitny a Jew from Maków Mazowiecki, Poland writes his take on his experiences in 1944 throughout the holocaust and how he and his family are treated by the Nazis and degraded as humans. In dire circumstances, these texts argue that dissolving one into a primitive with savage, animal characteristics are necessary for survival under inhumane conditions.

Throughout the duration of the Holocaust, many Jews witnessed the worst of humanity. In concentration camps, over six million people were killed and tortured. Among the people imprisoned in these camps was Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor. In his memoir Night, the many acts of dehumanization and cruelty that Wiesel witnesses ultimately leads to his loss of faith in both his god and humanity.

“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.

How are Jews supposed to live normally when every human being around them, including other Jews, are fighting against them? Due to dehumanization, the survivors of the Holocaust are as lifeless as the victims psychologically. It is nearly impossible that after experiencing a traumatic event such as Holocaust to feel normal again, to feel like a human again. Throughout history and in the book Night by Elie Wiesel, it is evident that gentiles did not care about the Jewish nation. Moreover, not even the Jewish people stick together and cared for one another. Thus the Jews ceased to feel like human beings during and after the Holocaust.

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

Dehumanized. Tortured. Starved. Those three words are referred to how the concentration camps were like. The memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel tells the story of his memory of the concentration camps and how it all turned into a big nightmare. Sighet is a little town in Transylvania where Elie spent his childhood. As a young boy Elie was very religious. Shlomo, Elies father was as well very religious. Religion meant a lot to him, however through out the Holocaust Shlomo and Elie soon realize what really is important.

Dehumanization is a concept that basically means that you’ve become so traumatized that your personality completely changes and you are a different person from before, because of the events that you have gone through, The holocaust was a war during World War II, when hitler opened up concentration camps and forced Jews to go, only to be murdered soon after. The reason we are talking about dehumanization, is because the Elie Wiesel went through this during the Holocaust, he lost his father, mother, and close friends to this event. It put him through a mindset that change his look on life and changed his thought on his own religion. Believing that his God may not be there all along.

World War II, a war lasting from 1939 to 1945, was the deadliest war known to humankind. Among the events of the Second World War was the Holocaust; a state-sponsored persecution of over six million Jews. A Holocaust survivor and author, Elie Wiesel, wrote a memoir called Night about his experiences in the concentration camps. To prevent such catastrophic events such as the Holocaust happen again, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) to bring peace to all nations and guarantee unalienable rights to all. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, he illustrates several examples of dehumanization towards jews, such as torture, property deprivation, and servitude, which resulted in the creation of the UDHR.

During the 1930’s in Europe Jewish people were persecuted. As Hitler continued to rise to power, his hatred in the Jews penetrated through society.In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie discusses his experience of being a Jewish during that time period by narrating his transitions from being sent to live in the ghettos and being sent to multiple concentration camps. Through mapping these experiences he also shows the struggle of having faith in humanity and in God. In Night Elie uses different literary techniques: point of view, imagery and metaphor to display how witnessing inhumanity can cause someone to be dehumanized.

Night by Elie Wiesel is a book in which has changed my perspective on the Holocaust. In previous years, I have never pondered the true events that took place. This book changed my point of view. Elie Wiesel composed a piece of literature that has reached people across the world. He used the three themes of dehumanization, complacency, and anonymity to portray his story and his struggles during his childhood. The way that he simply states the magnitude of all that happened is truly touching. He saw people beaten, hung, burned alive, and we saw the true effect of what can happen whenever you are surrounded by hatred. People over the years have taken Elie’s piece of work and based their own off of it. In the song, “Peel This Away”, Freddie Feldman and Gaskit address the true, horrendous crimes of these people. “The Unforgiven” by Metallica is another example of taking Elie’s life and putting another spin on it. Lastly, Jimi Hendrix addresses the hard truth of the Holocaust with his song “The Wind Cries Mary.” These artists took something from this book in a way that we all should.

Adolf Hitler came to power over Germany in January of 1933. He hated Jews and blamed them for everything bad that had ever happened to Germany. Hitler’s goal in life was to eliminate the Jewish population. With his rise to power in Germany, he would put into action his plan of elimination. This is not only why German Jews were the main target of the Holocaust, but why they were a large part of the years before, during, and after the Holocaust. Hitler’s “final solution” almost eliminated the Jewish population in Europe during World War II. At the end of the war and along with his suicide, the Jewish population would survive the horror known as the Holocaust and the Jews would eventually find their way back to their homeland of Israel