During Elie’s time at the concentration camps, he experiences the many ways that the Nazis dehumanize the Jews. The Nazis causes unhamity between the Jews and turns them against each other. During one of the passages, Wiesel learns that one of his Kapo was taken out for being too humane to inmates. The Nazis put Jews in charge and give those Jews certain privileges in order to keep them in check. As a result, these Jews become more humane than the SS officers so that they may keep their position. They treat inmates like tools to survive and nothing more. Additionally, it is not only the Nazis that dehumanize the Jews, so did the people of Germany. On the train trip to Buchenwald, German workers stop to throw bread into the the cart, as the
“Night” by Ellie Wiesel is a memoir of Ellie’s years during the Holocaust at the Nazi’s concentration camps. The book is his true story telling about the death of his friends and family,what he encountered, and how he started to lose faith in God. Ellie experienced many instances of dehumanization like when the Germans threw bread, and when he was cruelly punished. When the Front was moving closer to the camps, the Nazis moved Ellie and the others to Buchenwald. When they arrived, many Germans were watching the train while laughing and throwing bread.
“The Hungarian police burst into every Jewish home in town: a Jew was henceforth forbidden to own gold, jewelry, or any valuables”(p10 & 11).This memoir is discussing about the dehumanization of Jews by a man named Elie Wiesel who has survived the holocaust. The process of getting rid of Jews began in 1944 starting by grabbing any valuables Jews have and forcing them to wear stars on them. When Jews don’t have any valuables and making them wear the stars , the Jews can’t buy anything showing that Jews are weak and poor and they are just people that should not be in this world. “The yellow star? So what?
Dehumanization during the Holocaust was the most condemnable factor as to how such cruel and inhumane acts could be brushed off as mere orders, brothers and sisters became feral towards one another, and how one’s body can become so isolated from the mind. It is difficult to imagine such horrid ideas as reality, much less as history, but Elie Wiesel describes all of these gruesome acts in Night, his autobiographical account of his experience during the Holocaust. The genocide of six million human beings is far from rational, and it seems like only monsters could be capable of such an act. The Nazi’s—however dificult it is to admit—are not monsters, but people, and a person can not kill one another with good conscience. In Night, one of Ellie’s
To illustrate, the Nazis treated the Jews as if they were animals and were to obey the rules and if not, had a life-threatening consequence. The SS leader said “If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot like dogs” (Wiesel 24). On many occasions, the Jews were shot for no other reason than cruelty. The Nazis made sure the Jews understood that if a rule was broken they would be punished. In addition to referring to
Nazis dehumanize their victims in many horrific and unimaginable ways. In Elie Wiesel’s book Night the Nazis dehumanize the prisoners physically, mentally, and emotionally. The prisoners are physically dehumanized by going to forced death marches, receiving awful food, and getting beaten. The food the prisoners receive barely satisfies their hunger and it is not enough to give them the strength they require to work and survive.
Dehumanized “The bell. Already we must separate, go to bed. Everything was regulated by the bell. It gave me orders, and i obeyed them. I hated it”.
As “humankind struggles with collective powers for its freedom, the individual struggles with dehumanization for the possession of his soul” is a quote by playwright Saul Bellow that captures the essence of Night by Elie Wiesel. Night is a narration told from the perspective of Eliezer, a Jewish teenager, during the Holocaust. This narrative describes in horrifying personal detail the dehumanization of Jews in German concentration camps during the Nazi era. The increasingly severe dehumanization of Jewish people under Adolf Hitler’s reign gained traction through three basic tactics that are illustrated in Night: 1) creating an illusion that Jews were “other” or not deserving of the same liberties as Aryans, 2) distraction through social upheaval
The Holocaust was a genocide of European Jews during World War II, from 1941 to 1945. It killed about 6 million European Jewish people. What in every concentration camp Nazis would dehumanize. Dehumanization is treating a group or a person as less than a human and depriving them of the essential needs of a person. In his emotional memoir Night, Elie Wiesel demonstrates the dehumanization of the Jews in the concentration camps by highlighting how little by little they were giving up on their God and how they were treating them 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.
In "Night," Elie Wiesel describes the horrific dehumanization of himself, his father, and his fellow prisoners in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The process of dehumanization occurred gradually, through a series of events and actions that stripped the prisoners of their humanity, dignity, and self-worth. One example of dehumanization is the way in which the Nazis referred to the Jews as "vermin" and "rats," reducing them to the level of animals. This is evident when Elie and his fellow prisoners arrive at Auschwitz and are met by a Nazi officer who says, "You are now in a concentration camp.
Dehumanization is the process in which Nazis gradually and slowly degrade jews to little more than “things” because they don't see jews as humans. The Nazi’s felt this process was necessary due to the fact that jews were inferior to them. Jews were dehumanized at concentration camps constantly, many times the entering of the camps involved this. When Eli arrives at Auschwitz he is branded in a sorts. “I became A-7713.
Evil is around every corner, always skulking about. It is the process of dehumanization that makes possible the evils of war, and desensitizes the victimizer to smaller evils committed on a daily basis. Dehumanization occurs in Night and in “Pirandellian Prison” and also on the Internet. Evil is everywhere no matter where you go either something will be bad or someone will be bad. Some people have fortitude to withstand the punishments that the guards did to the prisoners.
Dehumanization Causing Events in Night 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 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.
Imagine knowing your fate ahead of time. That single moment would be stuck in your head, replayed every second to prevent it. This would obstruct your feeling of morals, making you only focus on your own survival. Nothing would get in your way of trying to survive. During the Holocaust, many people were faced with this moment when they stepped in a concentration camp.