Throughout this novella, the denied ability to have an exclusive title other than just a number, the critical circumstances of the feared concentration camp Auschwitz, and the disability to obtain a soul, all contribute to Elie’s incredulity towards his faith. Family titles and names are a prodigious gift from God. To acquire a name means that there is an importance for the individual’s life. Without names, an individual has no meaning and no worth. The SS men have replaced their captives original names for irrelevant numbers as shown in the following quote, “I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.” (Wiesel 42). This quotation explains the intended impact the SS men desired for the Jewish prisoners to believe. The artificial belief the SS men implanted into the minds of all their prisoners is that they are insignificant and unworthy of a name. This deteriorates an individual's emotional well being and will to live which leads to an unjustified faith. Elie’s identity has been reshaped by the sensation of feeling meaningless because his name is accustomed around his personality which defines one’s identity. Thus without a name, Eliezer has no individual personality or identity. Auschwitz is eminent for their impeccable lifestyle and cold-blooded soldiers. The barbarous SS men are domineering towards the Jewish captives throughout their eerie threats and actions, as demonstrated in the following quotation, “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, they did not deprive themselves of the pleasure. If one of us stopped for a second, a quick shot eliminated the filthy dog.” (Wiesel 85). This quote justifies the heartless actions of the SS men. While testing the emaciated prisoner’s endurance, without hesitation, the SS men proceeded to executing any Jewish hostage who dares to refuse
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.
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.
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. The feeling of dehumanization was very common between the jews. They were constantly being treated as in they were animals. The author and narrator Elie Wiesel, personally experienced being treated like an animal and he also saw how his father and peers were treated less humanely. The dehumanization of jews began because of their belief, they did not believe in the same things that the Nazis did. The nazis thought they were impure souls because they were not like the them.
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
One of Wiesel 's strengths in Night is to show the full face of dehumanization. It is something that the Nazis perpetrated against the people they imprisoned. The tattooing of numbers on the prisoners, something that Eleizer notes, is of extreme importance. A- 7713 is by definition an example of dehumanization because it robs the humanity of the individual. The abuses that the Nazis perpetrate on their prisoners is another example of dehumanization. The public beatings, the hanging of prisoners and making others walk past them, as well as the selection process are all examples of dehumanization. When Eliezer has to run at full speed to avoid being noticed during one of the selection processes, it is a reminder as to how large a role dehumanization
In the book, Night, Dehumanization majorly affects the Jews. Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazis gradually reduced the Jews to little more than things. It makes the Jews want to give up. There are many examples of dehumanization, including beating, selection, and robbery.
In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, courage is demonstrated throughout the novel by various characters. To begin, courage was shown when Elie’s father was too weak to continue working and was selected to be killed, so Elie ran after his father, determined not to lose him. Courageously he chased after his father, “...Several SS men rushed to find me, creating such a confusion that a number of people were able to switch over to the right-among them my father and I. Still, there were gunshots and some dead” (Wiesel 96). This piece of evidence shows that Elie rebelled against the SS to be with his father, which takes tremendous courage. Furthermore, in the earlier chapters of Wiesel’s novel he was beaten by a Kapo named Idek because he was in a bad mood. A French woman showed courage by giving Elie a mini speech in perfect German, a language no one knew she spoke, in order to pass off as an Aryan. Years later they meet
The Nazis dehumanize their victims physically, mentally, and emotionally in the concentration camps. The Nazis provide very little or sometimes no food for Jews, which results in death because of starvation. This is used every day by the Nazis to dehumanize Jews mentally. The biggest challenge the Jews face is staying healthy with very little food. If any of the workers are not capable of performing tasks due to sickness or disease, they are most likely to get killed. The Nazis often refer to Jews as goods for nothing, and treat them like they are animals. Separating young children from their mother is emotionally dehumanizing the Jews. The Nazis dehumanize Jews physically by beating them up for nothing. When Eliezer crosses Idek’s path at work one day, he says, “I happened
Enduring five concentration camps seems like an impossible feat, however, Elie Wiesel recounts his experience of just that in his memoir titled Night. Elie was imprisoned in theses camp (five different concentration camps) from the age of fifteen to the age of sixteen. Throughout his time in the camps Elie and many others experience unthinkable tragedies. After prolonged exposure to inhumane treatment the members of the camps began to lose their humanity. This process is known as dehumanization. Elie and countless others experienced the three different types of dehumanization: physical, psychological and social, although Elie manages to escape some aspects of the dehumanization process, he is still affected
Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is a memoir about his life as he goes through the Holocaust. Eliezer goes through many situations that cause him, and other Jews, to be dehumanized by the Nazis. The three levels of dehumanization are physical, mental, and emotional. Eliezer was affected by all three. Never in his whole life did he imagine that this would happen to him or his family.
Elie Wiesel, author and victim of the Holocaust wrote the novel Night which portrays his experiences in the Holocaust. During the Holocaust the Nazis dehumanized many groups of people, but primarily the Jewish people. Elie writes about his personal journey through the Holocaust, and how he narrowly escaped death. In Elie’s novel he also provides detailed descriptions of what the victims of the Holocaust had to suffer through, and the different ways the Nazis made them feel like nothing more than animals that are meant to be used for work and slaughtered.
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.
“ You don 't need religion to have morals. If you can 't determine right from wrong, then you lack empathy not religion.”- unknown.