Examples Of Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

The novel Night by Elie Wiesel tells a devastating tale of a young man in concentration camp in World War II. Concentration camps were used in World War II to dehumanize and terrorize Jews. Dehumanization is the act of depriving humans of their rights and treating them as if they were worse than animals. Humans had been fighting for so long to get equality for everyone, but then Hitler rose to power and undid the work society had done. Many examples of how World War II used dehumanization were Hitler and his actions, leaving family members behind, and the labor camps in themselves.

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.

There are many times one can see the Nazi’s brutalizing the Jews throughout the novel. From the moment the Nazi’s took the Jews as prisoners they were being mistreated. They were loaded into cattle cars, a vehicle made to transport animals, to the point where they were so full people could hardly breathe. They were sent to concentration camps where they were tortured and treated as slaves. As they entered the camps they were humiliated, SS officers yelled at them to “‘Strip! Hurry up! Raus! Hold on only to your belt and your shoes”(Wiesel 35). They were sent to cold showers and bathed in a sulfur-scented soap to be identifiable by their scent. They received only one small ration of food a day, these people were starved. Not only were they cared for like a group of worthless animals but some were never even given a chance.

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

Dehumanization the process of stripping people of their human qualities. In the novel night by Elie Wiesel the author uses many dehumanization scenarios to show what the jews experienced during the holocaust. They were stripped of their clothing and number like cattle for that fear was more important than food. The ss went though all of this for the exterminating the jews race.

In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel writes about his experience inside the concentration camps of Germany during World War II. He realizes how his humanity changes after he is free. Elie ponders about if he can be re-humanized after he passes trials, when he looks at a mirror. Wiesel uses a gloomy tone to reveal how Elie succeeds in survival through dehumanization.

(109) The Jews by lose their faith in their god when the Germans hung a little boy, and he was dangling there struggling to die, and a Jew next to Elie said “where is god when this boy is suffering?” Elie said back to the man “God is here, he is hanging from the ropes” ( 90) As a result Elie loses faith in hs god. Inhumanity and cruelty were shown when the Jews were stripped of their identity, hair, jewelry, and shoes. The Germans stripped the Jews of everything because they did not want to have individuality among the Jews in the camps. The Germans gave the Jews numbers that were tattooed on the arms so they could be kept up with. It is almost like in prison how they have numbers so they do not get mixed up or lost track of. Once they had numbers the Jews were told to go to the barracks and they were given striped blue and white uniforms. This was also savage because it was the middle of winter. The Jews wore very little clothing causing some Jews to die from the cold and

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.

“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.

In the memoir, Night , by Elie Wiesel is about Elie’s experience with the Holocaust. In the many work camps he traveled, he witnessed many cases of dehumanization. The word “Dehumanization” means a group of people assert the inferiority of another group. The humans that are inferior think that race of people shouldn’t deserve of moral consideration. When the Wiesel’s arrived at Birkenau, reception center for Auschwitz; Wiesel experienced his first case of dehumanization when he gets separated from his mother and his daughter. When he arrived at Auschwitz he gets tattooed a number; this is where the SS officers striped his birth name away. At Buna, Wiesel witnessed many followings because his fellow jews have committed crime. Throughout

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.

The Jews were treated as objects. Often times in the book, they would be referred to as dogs. For example, a guard says, “...if anyone of you goes missing, you will be shot, like dogs.” This is labeling the Jews as inferior and not important to the world. Everything is taken from the Jews to where they are basically no more important than a dog. Another example that shows how badly they were dehumanized and mistreated is something Elie said, “ ...all that mattered to me was my daily bowl of soup, my crust of stale bread.” This shows that he was to the point that he didn’t care about anything else but survival. This is sort of like the mindset of an animal, they only care about the necessities.

Although Eliezer survived the bloodcurdling Holocaust, countless others succumbed to the Nazi’s inhumanity. The Nazi’s progressively reduced the Jewish people to being little more than “things” which were a nuisance to them. Throughout Night, dehumanization consistently took place, as the Nazis oppressed the Jewish citizens. The Germans dehumanized Eliezer, his father, and other fellow Jews for the duration of the memoir Night, which had a lasting effect on Eliezer’s identity, attitude and outlook. Wiesel displays the Nazi’s vicious actions to accentuate the way by which they dehumanize the Jewish population. The Nazis had an abundance of practices to dehumanize the Jews including beatings, starvation, separation of families, crude murders, forced labor, among other horrific actions.

In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel depicts the steady escalation of dehumanization to which the Nazis subjected the Jews during the Holocaust and how it helped the Nazis crush the Jews’ spirits and justify their persecution and eventual genocide. Before the arrival of German soldiers, Wiesel and the other Jews of Sighet live in relative harmony with their Christian neighbors. But once the Nazis arrive, they steadily remove the Jews’ human rights until their fellow citizens no longer view them as human anymore. Thus, there is little action taken by the non-Jewish residents of Sighet when the persecutions and deportations begin. Additionally, the gradual pace of the dehumanization managed to convince the Jews that nothing significant was happening and that this was just a temporary phase that would soon pass. This could not be further from the truth. Once the Nazis finally issue the order to deport the Jews of Sighet, Wiesel notices that his neighbors’ spirits have been completely crushed: “There they went, defeated, their bundles, their lives in tow, having left behind their homes, their childhood. They passed me by, like beaten dogs, with never a glance in my direction. They must have envied me” (Wiesel 17). Wiesel describes his fellow Jews as downtrodden and defeated since they are now completely subject to the Nazi officers. The Nazis have stripped their rights, driven them from their homes, and treated them like animals. Being called and treated like animals, specifically

Elie Wiesel published the memoir “Night”, in 2006, which extrapolated on his terrifying experiences in the Nazi extermination camps during the World War ll. Elie, a sixteen-year-old Jewish boy, is projected as a dynamic character who experiences overpowering conflicts in his emotions. One of his greatest struggles is the sense of helplessness that he feels when all his beliefs and rights as a human are reduced to silence. During the time spent in the concentration camp, Elie is engulfed by an uninterrupted roar of pain and despair. However, what remains uninterrupted is the sheer torture and dehumanization of Elie’s nation, the Jews. Throughout this horrific experience, Elie’s soul perishes repeatedly as he faces constant psychological abuse, inhuman living conditions, and brutal negation of his humanity.