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.
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.” (Wiesel 77) This quote ties things all together for the reader, as it shows how the holocaust has left Elie a shell of his past identity, fragmented and broken. Unable to pick the pieces of himself back up, he must continue to be haunted by his past, never being able to live a happy faithful life with his family like he was
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.
In his 1986 Nobel Peace Acceptance Speech, Elie Wiesel develops the claim that remaining silent on human sufferings makes us just as guilty as those who inflicted the suffering and remain guilty for not keeping the memory of those humans alive. Elie Wiesel voiced his emotions and thoughts of the horrors done to Jewish people during World War II whilst developing his claim. Wiesel “remember[s] his bewilderment,” “his astonishment,” and “his anguish” when he saw they were dropped into the ghetto to become slaves and to be slaughtered. He repeats the words “I remember” because he and the world, especially those who suffered in the ghettos and camps, would never be able to forget how innocent suffered. Consequently, he emphasized that “no one” has the right to advocate for the dead.
Inhumanity and Cruelty in Night 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.
Lastly, Spiritual death. Spiritual death is a large part of this story, mostly because it shows the complete loss of faith. An example of this is “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” (Wiesel 34). This is the night of his first time at camp. This is significant because it shows how quickly he became spiritually dead.
Eventually they stopped being seen as human, as they were prohibited to go to restaurants or cafes. When they arrived at the first camp, Elie and his family were separated. Throughout the novel, Elie tells of the extreme measures he goes through just to stay with his father. His father is the reason why Elie keeps going and has a desire to live. During the years of the holocaust, many people were surrounded by death constantly.
Elie Wiesel’s somber speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, demonstrated the harsh reality of the numerous evils harvesting in the world. The main evil though was simply indifference, or a lack of concern. As a young Jewish boy, he faced the wickedness of the Holocaust, imprisoned at Buchenwald and Auschwitz and also losing both his parents and younger sister. The speaker saw atrocious horrors and suffered for a prolonged amount of time. Why was this permitted?
At the beginning of Night, Elie was someone who believed fervently in his religion. His experiences at Auschwitz and other camps, such as Birkenau and Buna have affected his faith immensely. Elie started to lose his faith when he and his father arrived at Birkenau. They saw the enormous flames rising from a ditch, with people being thrown in. Elie could not believe his eyes; how could this been kept covert.
His book Night is a haunting tale about the horrors Jewish people experienced during World War II. This book explains the perils of indifference by telling us about how much the Jews suffered and the fact that no one felt the need to act upon these abhorrent actions by the Nazis immediately. This marks the point where I will begin talking about Elie Wiesel’s book Night and how it drives