“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”, said Elie Wiesel the author of night. Elie Wiesel is a holocaust survivor, he went through 5 different concentration camps. He was dehumanized, malnourished, and abused. He lost all his possessions, his family, and his humanity. In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, the German Army dehumanizes Elie Wiesel and the jewish prisoners by depriving them of family, food, and self esteem.
The Nazis’s dehumanized the jews by depriving them of basic human needs like family. When families first get to the camp the men and women, brothers and sisters, fathers and sons get separated from each other. The separation of families is shown on page 29 when an SS officer commanded, “Men to the left!
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They live in barracks that were crammed with over 700 people or more in them. They were constantly moving also, referring to page 79, "Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one 'last night' to another?" The jewish people were constantly moving between camps and running from armies, which did not give them the adequate shelter a person needs. They didn't have a home, where they could be comforted they just kept moving not knowing where their lives were going next. The Nazi army did not give them the physiological needs you have to have to survive like shelter and food. The Nazi army degraded the Jewish people in many number of ways. One way was crushing their self esteem, they gave them numbers and referred to them by the numbers. Elie says on page 50, "I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time." This shows they did not have any confidence in themselves, they were totally oblivious to their own feelings. They were just bodies with one purpose, to die. After they got to the camp they had no way to get achievements to gain any sort of confidence. As Elie states on page 52, there was only one way to gain anything, In fact, “I was pleased with what was happening to him: my gold crown was safe. It could be useful to me
Elie Wiesel says, "I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions"(5). Questioning God is essential to building a relationship with Him. As one finds the answers to the questions they become closer to God. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie grows up questioning God and when he is put in the concentration camp he questions God in ways that test his faith. Despite having grown up so strong in his faith, Elie questions his faith as he is put through the trials and tribulations of the concentration camp.
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.
Nearing the end of their arduous journey, the mutual dependence was slowly dwindling as Elie began to have to take care of his father. One example of this is when his father was sick and in the camp infirmary and had not been fed so Elie “gave him what was left of [his] soup. But [his] heart was heavy. [He] was aware that [he] was doing it grudgingly,’ (107). Being that he did this grudgingly, the reader is shown that, to Elie, taking care of his father had become more of an unwanted task rather than a kind action coming from his heart. Elie begins to see his own father as a thorn in his side much rather than his source support. His father is no longer there as a person who will provide motivation to survive but now instead a burden. In another instance, still in the infirmary, when his father pleaded for water and the officer came to silence him, Elie states, “ I didn’t move.
Elie Wiesel faces many conflicts throughout this memoir. In the memoir, Night, by Elie wiesel, Hitler works hard to eradicate the Jewish people. Fallaciously, he forces Jews into thinking they aren’t going to be harmed. Adolf Hitler houses all Jewish people in death camps for he is indignant and he needs revenge after the World War. Also, Hitler is being hypocritical because he says the only worthy people are Aryan people, but he isn’t even Aryan. He often instructs the Nazi Soldiers to make all Jewish people despondent about life. The Germans are to have no decorum with the Jews. They are told to starve, beat, and punish the prisoners. Throughout the story, Wiesel struggles with staying alive and with helping his father stay alive in aspiration
A little over 70 years ago, Elie Wiesel survived a situation that many people could not even fathom. In 1944, Elie and his family were brought to Auschwitz where he nearly experienced death many times.
The holocaust is one of the world's most tragic events, approximately 6 million Jews died and the concentration camp Auschwitz is the world's largest human cemetery, yet it has no graves. In Elie Wiesel's autobiographical memoir Night, he writes about his dehumanizing journey in the concentration camp, Auschwitz. Firstly, Elie experiences the loss of love and belonging when he is separated from his mother, sisters, and eventually his father. Also, the lack of respect that the Nazis showed the prisoners which lead to the men, including Elie to feel a sense of worthlessness in the camp. Finally, the lack of basic necessities in the camp leads to the men physically experiencing dehumanization. As a result, all these factors contribute to the
The murder of thousands can not only impact the universe, but the ones that live in it. For instance, victims of the Happiest had to deal with, not only losing all of their loved ones but the deaths of others around them. In “Night”, Elie is expiring death, of not only his loved ones, also other Jews who were taken by Hitler. The loss of your family is petrifying. But watching others have their lives slipped away from their fingertips, is indubitably scary. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Elie changes drastically throughout the book, because of the time he spent in Auschwitz, one of the most infamous concentration camps.
Strong bonds built upon trust and dependability can last a lifetime, especially through strenuous moments when the integrity of a bond is the only thing that can be counted on to get through those situations. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, he writes about his life spent in the concentration camps, while explaining the experiences and struggles that he went through. However, not everything during that period was completely unbearable for Wiesel. When Wiesel arrived at the first camp, Birkenau, the fear instilled in him and the loneliness he would have felt forced him to form a stronger attachment to his father. That dependence towards his father gave Wiesel a reason to keep on living. In turn, his father was able to support Wiesel and make the experiences in the camps a bit more manageable.
15 years old. Summer. You should be tanning in the bright summer sun or riding your newly bought bike around the path by the lake. Insted, your role has flipped and you are caring for your sick father who is dying, something someone at this age should never have to experience. The Holocaust based texts Night by Elie Wiesel and the film the Last Days produced by Steven Spielberg, are well thought out examples of the young struggling while turning their backs on their youth. All of these examples showcase the struggle teens and young children faced during their time in ghettos and camps. In dire circumstances, these texts argue that Holocaust children are forced to abandon their youth.
The Holocaust was part of most infamous events in our modern world history, World War II. Night by Elie Wiesel shows one of the horrific lives lived in a concentration camp. This book brings insights including ways and effects of dehumanization and also effects on the antagonist’s followers.
Even though Eliezer was able to persevere, he was dehumanized by the Nazi’s in an atrocious and cold-blooded fashion. When a human is emotionally and physically stripped of their pride, it weakens his or her will to live. The Nazis targeted the Jews' humanity, and slowly dissolved their feeling of being an independant human. Elie Wiesel states “He took his time between lashes, only the first really hurt...twenty-four…twenty-five. It was over. I had not realized it but I had fainted.” (Wiesel 62). In the case of the Jews doing anything askew, they were to be punished in barbaric ways. This whipping by the Nazi’s had a drastic affect on Eliezer's identity, because before his punishment Eliezer had not yet altered his inquisitive mindset. Eliezer was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and as a result he was thrashed and trounced on by one of the German soldiers. This traumatized Eliezer and brought fear upon him, changing his attitude.
If God is so loving and good, how can He allow so much evil and bad things to happen in this world? One of the biggest stumbling block for millions of people in the world, commonly this is the question that I have heard, keep people from believing in God at all. In reflection of reading Night, by Elie Wiesel, I think that this is an important question to tackle. One of the themes of the memoir Night is, “the silence of God in all the atrocities and evil of this world.” Eliezer becomes hopeless, we see this when he says, “And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God’s silence.” (pg. 69, Night). When investigating such a heavy topic, it is important to focus on a few different areas. The idea of a loving and perfect God, but an evil and corrupt world. On page 76 of Night, Eliezer cries, “"It's over. God is no longer with us." And as though he regretted having uttered such words so coldly, so dryly, he added in his broken voice, "I know. No one has the right to say things like that. I know that very well. Man is too insignificant, too limited, to even try to comprehend God's mysterious ways...I suffer hell in my soul and my flesh. I also have eyes and I see what is being done here. Where is God's mercy? Where's God? How can I believe, how can anyone believe in this God of Mercy?"” To explain such a claim, let’s look at where evil comes from (what is the root of all evil), and, what the bible says about God being faithful/good. When it comes
On page 32 of Night, Eliezer says, “Babies! Yes, I did see this with my own eyes thrown into the flames.” Jews were selected to be burned to death in the crematorium if they looked weak and were unable to please the Nazis. The Nazis also killed Jews by hanging them, and even worse, making other fellow prisoners walk by and look them in the eyes while they were in the midst of dying. They made sure to be very strict, going to the point of replacing the head of Eliezer and his father’s block for being too nice. Eliezer and many other Jews at the concentration camps lost faith in God because of the harsh actions of the Nazis. While Eliezer was in the infirmary, another patient said he had more faith in Hitler because “He's the only one who's kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people,” (page 81). The Jews were beaten, whipped, and killed for doing nothing
Elie Wiesal's memoir Night tells the tragic story of his time spent in the concentration camps along with his father during World War 2. Elie faces and witnesses numerous acts of dehumanization by the Nazis when forced into the camps. The dehumanization of Elie is demonstrated through the stripping away of his humanity, physical abuse, and the stripping away of his innocence.
Instantly, the brute force is the Nazis main method of dehumanization. Violence increased greatly at the end of the war because the Nazis wanted to rid evidence of the Jews. Taking out as many Jews as they can before they are stopped, because,“In the Spring of 1944, with the end in sight, the Nazis deported and eventually wiped out 450 000 Jews” (Fine, 38). The end of the war is in sight, but that is when it became horrific. 450 000 Jews wiped out in a matter of months. Pride goes out to the Germans for great efficiency their destruction. Repetition of physical abuse weakens the victims. Elie, a boy in one of the many concentration camps remembers getting up at,“Around five o’clock in the morning we were expelled from the barrack. The Kapo’s were beating us again” (Wiesel, 36). Elie was getting beaten again. Later on, he no longer feels the pain. The beginning of his morality starts to fade with the hope that it never returns. Threatening prisoners with harsh, vicious words can suppress them from the inside. The German officer told the victims that,“If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot like dogs” (Wiesel, 24). The bluntness of his words can send shivers down a spine knowing full well that they will