“Meir Katz was moaning: Why don't they just shoot us now?” (Wiesel 103). This shows how the harsh conditions and punishment of the Nazi officers dehumanize the jewish prisoners in concentration camps. It is the process of dehumanization that made possible the evils of the Holocaust and makes possible the smaller evils that occur on a daily basis. The Nazi guards, as revealed in the Elie Wiesel memoir, Night, were able to victimize their prisoners because the process of dehumanization desensitized them to the evils they inflicted. The Nazi guards in Night victimized the prisoners because the process of dehumanization desensitized them to the evils they inflicted. When Elie first left his Ghetto he was forced onto a cattle car with more …show more content…
Another reason why the prisoners in the holocaust were dehumanized. When Elie and his father were being “transferred” from Auschwitz to Gleiwitz because the Russians were going to attack/liberate at this time Elie was in the hospital due to his injured foot. Elie decided to evacuate the camp with his father with his injured foot. Once again unknowingly if Elie were to stay in the hospital, he would have been liberated by the russians. When they evacuated they first had to run for many many hours to an abandoned city trying to rest, eat, and rehydrate. They then were stuffed into cattle cars to continue their journey. One of the times the train stopped they had stopped in a city which had people looking and interacting with the prisoners in the open cattle car. People were also so primal for the little amount of bread they killed people for the bread. “A worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest” (Wiesel 101). This shows how the prisoners are being dehumanized and are being treated less than human.
Throughout the novel Night and throughout the history of the holocaust, Nazis dehumanized Jewish prisoners with both language and actions. Nazis treated Jewish prisoners like animals; when they behaved well, they were rewarded with extra soup or bread and when they misbehaved, they were physically tortured or even killed. They were also referred to as numbers rather than names. This is shown when Elie Wiesel states, “I never felt anything except the lashes of the whip... Only the first really hurt,” (Wiesel 57).
After reading more of Elie Wiesel’s haunting life story, he describes the horrendous things he witnessed while in the concentration camp and, how the prisoners were treated in the most gruesome ways. When they first get to Auschwitz, the Jews are given a number then doctors use needles to brand it onto each captive’s forearm. From then on the prisoners were not known by name but, by their number. This was just one of the degrading things that the Jews were forced to endure. Another hardship they faced was the verbal and physical abuse not only from the guards but, from the other prisoners as well.
The terrifying encounters and portrayal of genocide, witnessed and experienced, during the holocaust were traumatizing and life changing. The Jewish prisoners, in the memoir, “Night” written by Eliezer Wiesel, were treated more like filthy animals than the human beings they were. The concentration camps were just a birthplace for a series of hellish physical and mental torture, as well as constant dehumanization. Eliezer Wiesel and his father experienced agonizing and disturbing dehumanization including, starvation, numerous beatings, unforgettable sights, and overall phychological torture. When Elie and his father first arrived in Auschwitzs, the SS soldiers took their belongings, clothes, and shaved their heads, “Their clippers
Besides physical torture, Jews were forced to watch the horrific deaths of their fellow prisoners. The abuse they witnessed and received damaged the prisoners mentally. Only the strongest and mentally determined prisoners could survive through the concentration camps. During the first weeks of Elie’s experience at Auschwitz, he describes being picked for their jobs by saying, “… the Kapos appeared. Each one began to choose the men he liked: ‘You… you… you…’
Avoid the habit of staying silent, especially when discussing brutal events that shouldn't be repeated, such as dehumanization, which is the act of separating someone of all the characteristics that make them uniquely human, such as uniqueness, soul, and identity. In the eyes of the Nazis, the majority of Jewish prisoners in concentration camps were in an equal position. Some prisoners did survive in the camps but they completely lost themselves while trying to return home. We refer to the Jews who were detained in camps as prisoners, but the Nazi regime treated them no better than animals. In his autobiography Night, Elie Wiesel writes about the dehumanization of "imperfect" people, particularly Jews, who had their identities taken away from them and were either put to death (a practice known as the "Final Solution" developed by Adolf Hitler) or felt lost after their survival, but who were also treated like animals before being put to death.
By forcing them to strip, the Jews are robbed of their clothes, their identity, and their dignity. Eliezer's father, a once proud and dignified man, is reduced to nothing more than his body, and his identity as a human being is stripped away. This event is significant because it marks the beginning of the Jews' degradation; it sets the tone for how they will be treated for the rest of their time in the camp. Elie Wiesel says “Our clothes were to be thrown on the floor at the back of the barrack. There was a pile there already.
The book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, was published in 1956. Elie, a Holocaust survivor tells us his story about being in a concentration camps and how he got through it all. During the Holocaust Germany’s Nazis treated the Jewish people with extreme cruelty. It is important to understand this history through Elie’s personal experiences. One of the ways that the book shows how cruel the Nazis were to the Jewish people is when Elie and the rest of the Jewish people were put into a train with no bathroom, with little air, all crowded, not given enough food, and treated like animals.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night he and many of the other prisoners felt victimized by the guards and their use of power over them. One example of abuse and dehumanization is Franek, the foreman. He noticed that Elie had a gold crown in his mouth, Franek wanted it. When told to give it to him, Elie said no, so Franek started harassing and abusing Elie’s father. Elie’s father was unable to march in step, which caused a problem for him because everywhere they went it was in step, “This presented Franek with the opportunity to torment him and, on a daily basis, to thrash him savagely.
It’s difficult to imagine the way humans brutally humiliate other humans based on their faith, looks, or mentality but somehow it happens. On the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, he gives the reader a tour of World War Two through his own eyes , from the start of the ghettos all the way through the liberation of the prisoners of the concentration camps. This book has several themes that develop throughout its pages. There are three themes that outstand from all the rest, these themes are brutality, humiliation, and faith. They’re the three that give sense to the reading.
Millions of Jewish people were forced to work in ghettos, concentration camps, and other labor camps. They were subjected to long hours of hard physical labor, often in harsh and inhumane conditions. This forced labor was dehumanizing and robbed individuals of their freedom, dignity, and sense of self. In the “Forced Labour Camps” article, the author wrote, “As in most Nazi camps, conditions in forced labour camps were inadequate. Inmates were only ever seen as temporary, and, in the Nazis view, could always be replaced with others: there was a complete disregard for the health of prisoners.
The cattle carts would pass through German towns. Whenever they made a stop German Laborers would go to work and would stop to look at them as if it was some kind of zoo. For enjoyment, they’d throw rations of bread at them, “A crowd of workmen and curious passersby had formed all along the train. They had undoubtedly never seen a train with this kind of cargo. Soon, pieces of bread were falling into the wagons from all sides.
Less than 100 years ago, six million innocent lives were wiped off the face of the planet, and most of the world had no idea. In the book Night, author Elie Wiesel shares his narration of the brutal dehumanization of himself and many other Jews during the Holocaust in World War II. In an intricate plan dubbed “the Final Solution” by Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler, people of the Jewish faith all across Europe were driven from their homes by the Nazi regime and consolidated within concentration camps. While there, they worked under some of the worst conditions ever endured by human beings until they died by any one of the countless dangers within the camps. Elie is one of these inhabitants of such camps, and he shares both his physical and mental
Vincent Johnson Period 3 February 16, 2023 Rough Draft - Elie Wiesel’s Night: Dehumanization Explanatory Essay The process of Dehumanization is one of the most cruel things ever. You have men,women and children as some type of tool bending to the will of one supreme ruler and throughout this you will just be the cattle that are there for their entertainment. Elie Wiesel at 12 years old had to go through his horrible experience with fellow Jews at the holocaust. They were slaughtered like animals for the simple things, forced to do unimaginable labor work and even had to watch as their loved ones around them fell before them. In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel shows the dangers of inaction by exposing how the Nazis dehumanized the Jews through
Warmth, food, comfort, and clothes, are all examples of basic human needs that the Nazis deprived of concentration camp prisoners. In the book “Night” by Eliezer Wiesel, he details how he and his father were excessively dehumanized. With many examples of the Nazi's brutal actions,
In which millions of Jews were innocently killed and persecuted because of their religion. As a student who is familiar with the years of the holocaust that will forever live in infamy, Wiesel’s memoir has undoubtedly changed my perspective. Throughout the text, I have been emotionally touched by the topics of dehumanization, the young life of Elie Wiesel, and gained a better understanding of the Holocaust. With how dehumanization was portrayed through words, pondering my mind the most.