Examples Of Dehumanization

Ever since the humans have been separated into different ethnic groups racism has existed on Earth. The idea of racism has existed since the beginning of time but today racism is not as prominent as it once was but it still lives. Racism is kept alive through microaggressions or the eununciating of an offensive and racist comment. During the Great Depression, racism was in its prime, Harper Lee’s renown novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, brings the ideology of racism to light. Throughout the novel, Lee delivers a powerful message on the topic of racism which is the white community’s racist mindsets about black people has caused colored people to be unjustly tried in court, be dehumanized, and receive unnecessary hostility constantly by the white

Dehumanization is when one people group is viewed as subhuman to another people group. The Nazis did everything they could to degrade and dehumanize the Jewish people. When the Jewish people were deported, they were shoved into cattle cars for days long trips with little food, air, or water. All of their personal belongings were stripped from them. The prisoners were shaved bald and referred to only by their assigned numbers, never their real name (Wiesel 22-42). This was all an attempt to dehumanize the Jewish people, making them nothing but a number. On the other hand, the Ukrainians were considered traitors to the Soviet Union and placed below the people of Russia. The blame was placed on the Ukrainian peasants’ shoulders when there was a shortage of grain. Vladimir Lenin, the predecessor of Joseph Stalin wrote a tirade against the kulaks, calling them “bloodsuckers” and “plunderers” (source 1). Although both the Jews and the Kulaks were dehumanized and not seen as citizens of the country they lived in, the dehumanization process was different for

Dehumanization is the process of removing positive human qualities from people, but what would you consider positive

How were the Jews dehumanized by the Nazis? The Nazis dehumanized the Jews through depriving them of basic human needs, individuality, and by treating them like animals. Elie Wiesel, surviver of the Holocaust, explains dehumanization in his autobiography Night. Night takes its reader through an amazing realization of how the people changed from civilized humans to vicious and animal-like. Each event that happens to Elie and the Jews, strips away pieces of their humanity. The Nazis dehumanize the Jews by robing them of their beloved possessions.

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.

The holocaust took the lives of six million persons, Jews, Catholics, and homosexuals. Night a memoir by Elie Wiesel was a book about the life as a Jew in the 1940’s. He explains how he suffered during the year that he was there, the camps he was at. The pain that he went thru getting separated from his mother, finding out that her and his sister Tzipora got sent to the crematorium. Life for a Jew in the 1940’s suck. Elie went thru dehumanization because of the way he gets treated in the concentration camps, from getting called dogs to being choosen like cattle.

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.

In the camps Germans used violence and death threats to keep the Jewish prisoners frightened and submissive. “The night was pitch-black. From time to time, a shot exploded in the darkness. They had orders to shoot anyone who could not sustain the pace. Their fingers on the triggers, and they did not deprive themselves of the pleasure. If one of us stopped for a second, quick shot eliminated the filthy dog.”(Night, 87), the officers didn’t see the Jews as nothing more than inferior. They were viewed to be less and treated like a smelly homeless dog. The prisoners themselves began to act similar to the Germans when they began to view violence as entertainment, a coping mechanism, and pleasure. The inhumane aggression and senseless, cruel violence they were given forced them to be just as inhumane towards their fellow prisoners.

During the Holocaust, German Nazis slaughtered Jewish people and held them prisoner as well. While they were held captive, the Jewish people were often dehumanized. Dehumanization is defined as the process of depriving a person or group of human qualities. Throughout the book Night by Elie Wiesel, there is many examples of dehumanization, like taking away personal identities, starvation, and being forced to watch others be murdered that helped Adolf Hitler achieve his ends.

The psychology of dehumanization is an important concept to understand before getting into specific examples of the act. Such an action goes hand in hand with war, cruelty, and genocide.

One of the SS officers in night said "if anyone goes missing, you will be shot, like dogs" (pg.24) Moishe said "Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns." (pg.6). One example of dehumanization is of farm animals. Most farmers don't name their cows they number them, if you raise your cows and name them, what are the odds that when it comes time to eat them you are going to want to. The process of numbering the cows is not only to keep track of them but to limit your attachment to your animals. This is what they did during the holocaust, by numbering the Jews they were keeping track and limiting attachment. By not knowing the Jews they wouldn't know who they were killing so they wouldn't

Sentenced to a life of persecution and cruel treatment for his beliefs, a young Jewish boy witnessed his fellow prisoners terrorized and their humanity stripped away by Nazis. Elie Wiesel watched as the Nazis starved, beat, and killed the Jews, and with that slowly deprived the Jews of any empathy or compassion to the point of Jews turning on one another for the means of survival. Elie Wiesel’s Night demonstrates that violence leads to dehumanization as shown by man vs. society conflict, flashbacks, and imagery describing acts of brutality. Due to the man vs. society conflict in Elie Wiesel’s Night, the Jews were persecuted for their beliefs and sentenced to a life of violence that led to dehumanization of the Jews.

Hitler tried to use dehumanization to wipe Jews off the face of the planet. Millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis in brutal and savage ways, but some were lucky enough to make it through the selection. Although the Jews survived the selection, they were forced to live like animals. The Jews were given scarce amounts of foods and necessities, which made the Jew’s struggles even harder. The Jews had been treated as if they were animals for so long, that they started to act inconsiderately of others in some situations. Dehumanization was portrayed in multiple ways, throughout the story.

Dehumanization is the psychological process of demonizing the enemy, making them seem less than human, and therefore, unworthy of human treatment. The Nazis used this tactic to portray Jews as animalistic so that people would willingly persecute them. The Holocaust was a result of persecution. It led to around 12,000,000 innocent people being killed. Dehumanization is evident in Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night.

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.