Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

In 1944-1945, Elie Wiesel was one of the few survivors to witness the lives during the Holocaust. He was only 15 years old to experience many brutal and harsh treatment between the Jews and the non-Jews. Growing up, Wiesel had faced many prejudice in the concentration camp as a prisoner by the Gestapos and other non-Jew workers. In 1960, Wiesel wanted to share his past experiences from the Holocaust by writing his memoir. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel discusses the theme of Racism. Through his use of atmosphere, tone, and foreshadowing, Wiesel is saying to reader that when one group deems themselves superior to another, they take the humanity away from the lesser groups.

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.

Elie Wiesel uses metaphors, Rhetorical questions and personification to demonstrate that dehumanization ultimately causes negative, mental, physical changes in victims.

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.

Elie Wiesel was a young boy strongly devoted to his faith, but it quickly dwindled as he experienced dehumanization. Throughout the novel Night, The Nazis conducted many acts of dehumanization upon the Jewish citizens. The Nazis harshly targeted the Jews’ humanity, and gradually softened their perception of being human. The inhumane treatment began in their very own town of Sighet and continued into various concentration camps they were forced into. Jews were brutalized in these camps and experienced many forms of mental and physical abuse. They were given tattoos in the camps, which was quite demeaning. They physically mistreated them, starved them and separated them from their loved ones.

“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.

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.

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.

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

Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lived changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4). This would change in the coming weeks, as Jews are segregated, sent to camps, and both physically and emotionally abused. These changes and abuse would dehumanize

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 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.