Dehumanization In Ellie Wiesel's Night

Break of Dawn

Ellie Wiesel once said “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” In the book Night Ellie Wiesel explained his experience of World War II. From being at home with nothing to worry about, to being in Auschwitz. In Ellie’s novel Night a tragic theme is dehumanization. Throughout the novel examples of dehumanization occur when the Hungarian police transported them in cattle cars, when the German soldiers stripped them of their valuables, and they worked them worse than animals, more like machines.

Hitler made the Jews think they were less than nothing. When the Hungarian police made them get into the cattle cars, they knew that it was only the beginning. Having only a couple pails of water, some bread, and eight people to share was not the most satisfying trip to take. Ellie had said that the Hungarian police had checked the bars over the windows to assure that they would not come loose. One person would be in charge of the car, if someone escaped the person in charge would be shot. “Lying down was not an option, nor could we all sit down. We decided to take turns sitting” said Wiesel. Having little room made it even harder to breath even

He also noticed that they were drained of all energy, they were worked to the ground. They hadn’t even noticed the new “workers” coming into the death factory. Towards the end of the novel Wiesel was explaining how they were moving from Auschwitz to another camp, and one of the SS officers had said “Faster, you tramps, you flea-ridden dogs!” The SS was saying this as if they hadn’t already had worked their life and human power away. When they were in the midst of running from Auschwitz, the SS were ordered to shoot anyone who couldn’t keep up with the others. One by one boys had lost their fathers and fathers losing their