Ever since humans came to be, they have done many things to ensure their survival. It’s the reason why we humans have evolved as much as we have. Humans have invented devices, accomplished many challenges, and have even relied on nothing but willpower to survive.
The severely cruel conditions of concentration camps had a profound impact on everyone who had the misfortune of experiencing them. For Elie Wiesel, the author of Night and a survivor of Auschwitz, one aspect of himself that was greatly impacted was his view of humanity. During his time before, during, and after the holocaust, Elie changed from being a boy with a relatively average outlook on mankind, to a shadow of a man with no faith in the goodness of society, before regaining confidence in humanity once again later in his life.
Dehumanization is the process in which a person is deprived of their human qualities. The Nazis often used this practice on the Jews and other victims of the Holocaust as these people were stripped of their humanity, and many examples of this can be found in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel. “Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even with these crematories…”(Wiesel 15). This quote showcases the absence of humanity in concentration camps. The Nazis valued the lives of the Jews so little that they threw the Jews into fires and gas chambers without any regard that those were human lives. The prisoners were denied of their basic human right, life. They were no longer humans, but instead they were corpses. While some Jews’ lives were immediately taken by the Nazis at the entrance to the camps, the ones who stayed alive were who suffered
Over the course of Eliezer’s holocaust experience in the novel Night, the Jews are gradually reduced to little more that “things” which were a nuisance to Nazis. This process was called dehumanization. Three examples of events that occurred which contributed to the dehumanization of Eliezer, his father, and his fellow Jews are: people were divided both mentally and physically, those who could not work or who showed weakness were killed, and public executions were held.
In many ways, Nazis had physically, mentally, and emotionally dehumanized their victims. The Jews were treated so badly by the Nazis that they felt as if they weren’t even humans; they felt like animals. For example, the Jewish prisoners were always being yelled at with harsh tones. Eliezer only remembers one time when a Polish
On the subject of this, the first experience of dehumanization Wiesel experienced was when he and his family were forced into wagons packed with other innocent jews and he says, “After two days of travel, thirst became intolerable, as did the heat” (Wiesel 23). For two days, eighty jews were packed together like sardines on train wagons with no food or water. This horrified me on how the Nazis treated them like prisoners guilty of crimes that justified their own actions against the Jews. The three stages of dehumanization, which is mental, physical, and emotional, were represented throughout the memoir. Mental dehumanization was the stage in which saddened me the most. An example was when Wiesel and all the jewish prisoners in Bruna had assembled on the Appelplatz on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, his thoughts were, “Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because he caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves?” (Wiesel 67). Elie Wiesel was very religious before he
World War II had been raging for two years and was bout to enter Sighet. The Germans attempted to commit genocide on the 'lesser ' races, particularly Jews. Through the brutality witnessed, acts of selfishness, the death of his father, and the loss of his faith, Elie changed. Elie became a young man with a strong sense of mortality through it all. By the end of the war, Elie claimed to see himself as "A corpse contemplating me." (Night, 115).
Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator of Germany, conducted a genocide known as the Holocaust during World War II that was intended to exterminate the Jewish population. The Holocaust was responsible for the death of about 6 million Jews. Night is a nonfiction novel written by Eliezer Wiesel about his experience during the Holocaust. Many events in the novel convey a theme of “man’s inhumanity to man”. The prisoners of the concentration camps are constantly tortured and neglected by the German officers who run the camps. The cruelty of the German officers at the concentration camps change Elie’s personality throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Elie is deeply religious and spends most of his time studying Judaism. However, by the end of the novel, Elie believes that God has been unjust to him and all the other Jews, and has lost most of his faith. The cruelty of the German officers also changed the other Jews as well. The events of the Holocaust forces the prisoners to fend for themselves, and not help others.
Night by Elie Wiesel is a book about what Elie witnessed in the concentration camps during the holocaust in WWII and what he had to go through. The film, Hotel Rwanda, featured a similar story except it was about the Rwandan genocide. The reason why both Night and Hotel Rwanda seem similar because they both have ethnic groups that are being hunted down through means of genocide, there are people who are trying to protect the ethnic groups being hunted, and both of the situations that happen in these two stories challenge the morals of the characters.
At first Elie has a hard time getting used to life in the camps. He is beaten and starved. Him and his father nearly get separated at some points in the book. They soon figure out that they won’t be able to stay with each other at all times. Eventually, they are moved to a new camp and the S.S. make them run at all times when they are being moved. The head of Camp Buna, Idek, loses his temper very
In the novel Night the protagonist, Elie Wiesel, narrates his experiences as a young Jewish boy surviving the Holocaust. Elie 's autobiographical memoir informs the reader about how the Nazis captured the Jews and enslaved them in concentration camps, where they experienced the absolute worst forms of torture, abuse and inhumane treatment. Dehumanization is shown in the story when the Jews were stripped of their identities and belongings, making them feel worthless as people. From the start of Elie Wiesel 's journey of the death camps, his beliefs of his own religion is fragile as he starts to lose his faith. Lastly, camaraderie is present as people in the camps are all surviving together to stay alive so as a result the people in the camp shine light on other people 's darkness.
The tent leader was dehumanized by no longer being associated as a human but an animal like creature. Furthermore, the tent leader was dehumanizing the children by molesting them. The tent leader was stripping any purity and innocence away from the children. He hunted the children like animals, making them no longer a living breathing creature, but a prey for the tent leader. Dehumanization will continue throughout Elie’s long night. Elie was in Buchenwald Camp and got unexpected news from the Germans. On Elie’s walk back to his tent he was told that the underground resistance wasn’t leaving the Jews. Elie’s told by Largerkommandant that the Nazis are liquidating the camp. While the Nazis are evacuating the Jews, Elie says, “From that moment on, there was no further distribution of bread or soup” (Wiesel 114). Taking away the Jews’ food strongly shows dehumanization. The Jews barely got any food from the Nazis, and now they have taken that away completely. The Jews’ were being deprived of their right to eat and gain nutrients. When the Nazis took the Jews’ food away, they took their last right as
“Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.” This was written by Elie Wiesel. He published a book describing life during World War 2. During the holocaust, Elie is a young boy who is taken to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp.Throughout NIght, the main character, Elie experienced horrible events causing his loss of faith, emotional changes, and desire of death.
In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, Elie begins the novel living a normal life in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania. He lives with a family of six, with his mother, father, and three sisters. The story picks up quickly after the Nazis move in, first taking away the town’s rights to own any gold, jewelry, or any valuables, then no longer have the right to restaurants, cafes, synagogues, or to even travel by rail. Soon the town of Sighet then came the ghettos. It was prohibited from leaving their homes after six o 'clock in the evening. Then two Ghettos were created in Sighet, one larger one in the center of town and another smaller one a few alleys away. Ghettos were primarily used to keep the Jews from escaping, and to constantly manage their location. Soon after life began to return to normal until transport vehicles started to come to ship off the Jews to concentration camps. In less then a week of the arrival of the transport vehicles all the people of Sighet were in cable cars on their route to concentration camps. Upon the arrival of the Jews the Nazis had prepared a cruel arrangement of steps to properly manage the Jews. The Nazis were determined to have their identity be stripped away from them, starting with the choice of clothes being worn, forced to wear prison uniforms. Next they were forced to shaved their heads and every hair on their body, losing the choice of appearance. Finally the Nazis gave each person a tattoo of a number
Normally when someone sees their parent getting beat they would stand up and try to defend them. But Elie says how he got mad at his dad as if it was his father’s fault. A normal human wouldn’t get mad at their parent for something like that. The reason i’m going to say that this is an example of dehumanization is for how he responds. It wasn’t normal and it wasn’t right. A second thing the Nazis did was they separated families. It's deadly when you lose a loved one. But not knowing if the other one of dead or alive or where they are is even more devastating and that really tore into people's