Night: Dehumanization “He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible. Only dehumanized” (F. Scott Fitzgerald). Jews were treated so badly that they began to act terribly but eventually they reached the point beyond repair and it was all due to dehumanization. The Holocaust took place in WW2, it was a horrific event that killed millions of Jews. Many Jews were taken from their homes and were killed, or were treated less than animals until death of starvation or exhaustion.
Elie Wiesel’s true story Night, is an intriguing story about the Holocaust. The guards and even veteran prisoners are cruel to others. The punishments, even for tiny faults, are unthinkably horrid. Man does not care how old or weak someone is; this makes the children and teens change and act inhumane towards other prisoners, even towards their own family. It clearly, and painfully, explains man’s inhumanity to man.
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.
The Nazis were successful in fully dehumanizing Jewish prisoners in concentration camps. This brutal treatment often led to the loss of hope in these camps, part of the Nazis goal. In Night, Eliezer Wiesel’s memoir, he tells of the many instances where he experienced dehumanization during his time at several concentration camps. The Nazis eliminated people’s humanity in many ways, including starvation, nakedness, and taking away their names in exchange for a number. Starvation causes great suffering and deprives people of an essential part of life.
It’s 1941, the smell is fowl, the scene is horrifying, and there’s fear circling in the air. There are thousands of innocent people here kept as prisoners. Forced to stay here and work because they are considered as Jews. They have been separated from their loved ones and they have the fear they may not be reunited. These poor people are fighting for survival and are barely alive.
The dehumanization the Jews underwent during the Holocaust was shocking. They were seen as ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘not as evolved’ by the German army. In Elie Wiesel’s book Night, published in 1956, he tells of the many events he experienced going in and out of the camps. These events broke down their morals and rid them of their humanity in ways which can only be described as disturbing.
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.
The Holocaust was entitled as the worst act of genocide in history. Emotionally the Nazi 's tortured the Jews for years in concentration camps deprived them of their named and identity. Although there are many themes represented in the holocaust art and literature, struggle to maintain faith is present in the passage from Elie Wiesel 's Night, Judith dazzios "A day in the life of the Warsaw ghetto "and Alexander Kimels "The action in the ghetto of rohatyn" "Silence in the Jews Ghetto" It was a very bad time from the start for the Jews. They were brutally punished by the Nazi 's for no apparent reason.
When Elie first arrived at the camp he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He saw, “Children thrown into the flames” (32). He is seeing children thrown into flames, he is in shock and cannot believe what he’s seeing. The way the author describes this scene gives the feeling that the guards have no sympathy for the people being slaughtered. The author describes the children as dying and helpless, which describes the truly dark nature of the concentration camps.
Can you imagine being stripped of all your faith? In the memoir, Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie and all the Jews faced many spiritual crises that tested their faith in God, humanity and himself. Elie had lost all faith because of the way they were treated by the Nazis. The Nazis punished the Jews for practicing their religion. Any sort of faith the Jews had were lost after the way the Nazis treated them and the terrifying events they faced.
There were multiple accounts of dehumanization of the Jews in Night by Elie Wiesel, and the vast majority of it came from the Nazis. The most basic of human rights were deprived of the Jewish people throughout all of Night. Jews in the book were not being treated humanely at all; the Nazis treated the Jews like they were animals. For example, in Night it was mentioned that the Jews were given tattoos to identify them, which is just how a farmer would treat cattle. The Jews also has little to no rights what so ever while being in captivity by the Nazis. "
Finally, concentration camps were not immune to disease. After put in the camps, Jews had their head shaved. The SS kept all the hair and used it to stuff the Jews’ pillows. Lice live and hair… and lice carry a lot of diseases. Concentration camps treated Jews much, much worse than internment camps treated Japanese-Americans.
(Wiesel 35), said an SS officer. Thus, commanding that the Jews had to strip their own clothes. This is dehumanizing in many ways, because the SS officers are commanding the prisoners to strip, which is very personal and should not be forced upon a human. Furthermore, this affected Wiesel and his father in many ways, as it took away their own freedom and made them scared. In conclusion, using commands to boss around Jews like a pack of wild dogs was just one of the many ways SS officers dehumanized the Jewish
The Jews and those of the oppressed were crying out, “How was it possible that man, woman, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent? No. All this could not be real. A nightmare perhaps... (32).” These outcasts of the “Aryan race” arguably experienced the worst this world has to offer, unspeakable and unbearable conditions to even exist in, they lived in the end of hope; they cried out with their only breath for this world to listen, just as the smoke consumed their hope, their lives, and their existence.
In the book Night, Elie Wiesel describes his struggles as a Jew in a concentration camp using a depressing and serious tone, meant to reflect the horrific conditions the Jews were forced to face and the theme that adversity can cause a loss in faith. From the time Elie first arrived at the camp and heard everyone saying prayers, to when the young pipel was hung, and even when the Jews had to make the long, arduous, trek to the other camp, the reader could see his faith dwindling as he continued to question where his God was and why he wasn’t helping the Jews. Not only was a lack of faith evident in Elie himself, but the other Jews around him, even the priests, were having trouble believing in their God. Elie’s disheartened and somber tone