From just reading the first two sentences I can already tell how much these camps have changed the prisoners. The author, Primo Levi, reminds me much of Elie from the fact as they both refused to take showers as they thought it was a waste of precious energy, a resource they had little of and must conserve. We can already tell how much the Nazis wanted to turn these prisoners into beasts, as they had even taken away the delight of a shower, as well as marking them like cattle with numbers on their wrists. Primo Levi friend Stienlauf quotes “...the Lager (prison camp) was a great machine to reduce us to beasts, we must not become beasts; that even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell their story, to bear witness…” This is a very powerful quote, as it reminds me much of Elie holding on to his father as his will to live, to fight on pass the horrors of the camp and the Nazis.
During world War II Germany’s goal was to annihilate the Jewish population and in doing that the Nazis dehumanized the Jews by stripping them of their belongings and whatever made them unique and treating and working them like animals or robots just like Robots the Nazis would work the Jews until they couldn't work them anymore then they would get rid of them by killing them. Elie Wiesel a boy at that time went through this horrific part of history and decries these horrors in his book night using repetition and Imagery in order shows how the Nazis attempted to dehumanized the Jews during world War II. Elie wiesel uses Repetition through the book to show the horrible treatments the Jews had to endure and Man's inhumanity towards man. Elie Wiesel uses repetition on page 45 when their relative Stein from Antwerp visited them in their part of the camp and he told Eliezer’s dad to take of himself and take care of
Throughout the memoir Night, written by Elie Wiesel, Elie depicts the systematic and brutal dehumanization of the Jewish people by the Nazis. The motif, of dehumanization, is carried out throughout the book in many scenes. Elie speaks of his memory of walking to the station “...where a convoy of cattle cars was waiting”(Wiesel 22).This is the first act of being dehumanized as they are deported to Auschwitz. From the moment they arrive at Auschwitz, the Jews are stripped of their individuality, forced to wear identical clothing, shave their heads, and given numbers instead of names. As Elie is tattooed with his numbers he has “no other name…(he) became A-7713”(Wiesel 42); this completely takes away his identity and his humanity.
Plot: Elie Wiesel lived with his younger sister and parents in a small town during the period of World War Two. Where they were Jewish their fear of the German reaching them grew steadily until the German tanks rolled through their streets. Where the officers were nice, that did not stop them from setting up the ghetto’s in town square: “The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion” (12). Soon Wiesel found himself on a train to Auschwitz, where he was separated from his mother and sister, forced along with his father to join the other men at their camp. To work or to be burned, Elie and his father struggled to stay alive, on their rations of bread, but keeping fit enough to survive the test the leaders put on them.
The first piece of advice about how to survive, given to Wiesel, was from a young Pole, a prisoner in charge of one of the prison blocks. After Eliezer, his father, and the rest of the selected prisoners, made the short march from Birkenau to Auschwitz. Upon arrival they were forced to shower. After the showers, they were left outside cold and wet, naked and never given the clothes they were promised. Guards came and told the prisoners they had to run, “The faster you run, the sooner you can go to bed” (page 38).
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night recounts the horrific experiences he encountered throughout the mass extermination and exploitation of Jews and other ‘undesirable’ minorities in an event known as the Holocaust. Throughout the duration of novel Wiesel confronts various traumatic sights and circumstances which are highly disturbing and force him to reevaluate his beliefs and abandon parts of himself in order to survive. In this passage he has recently arrived at Auschwitz and is experiencing his first night in the camp where he talks about the impact this ordeal has on him from this day on. A central idea in the novel and excerpt is dehumanization, which is further developed with the use of repetition. These experiences have an enormous impact
Two themes that will be focused on throughout this essay are confinement and loss of identity, the cruelty shown throughout the book is enough to break someone, but with the addition of confinement and losing oneself, it breaks one deeper, it destroys and devastates whatever is left that has not already been broken. Confinement and the loss of oneself worked hand in hand to break someone mentally and physically, the officers treated everyone like they were slaves. No one was given freedom, everyone was given the bare minimum, and that included the things needed to survive: they were given a slice of bread and a bowl of soup broth. The fact that these meals were so low in nutrition was hard for the prisoners to conform to; but then on top of the malnourishment they were also performing different types of hard labor throughout the day, depending on what their job was. Even though they weren’t being fed enough the prisoners were given little to no shower time, so no-one was hygienic in the concentration and death camps, there just wasn’t time for it, because the only time they had extra was for the regular selections
As a result of a constant exposure to brutality, Elie nearly forgets the existence of a standard of humanity, since even the smallest acts of kindness are”judged too humane” (44). As Elie’s situation disintegrates from the stable Sighet to the Nazi concentration camp, he develops
In fact, I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What’s more, if I felt anger in that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo, but at my father. ”(Wiesel 54). Later on, he goes on to say “That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me…”(Wiesel 54). Elie confesses how being in the concentration camp changed his thoughts.
Human nature is filled with both cruelty and compassion. Depends on one’s distinct characteristics, people might have various reactions to a subject, even under the same circumstance. The short story “Night” presents this separation in describing a polish block leader and a gypsy. At the concentration camp, minority group like Jews are dehumanized. Elie’s father, who politely asks for the location of toilet, expects to receive a proper answer, only get a slap in the
After arriving at Buchenwald, Elie’s father had grown extremely sick from dysentery, a disease which made him extremely thirsty but extremely dangerous to give water to. As he is battling his inner fear of becoming Rabbi Elahu’s son (who abandoned his own father), the Blockaltest tells Elie, “ ‘Listen to me, kid. Don’t forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you can’t think of others. Not even your father.
Elie and the other prisoners are fully exposed to the horrible inhumanity of the Nazis. Due to the brutal methods of the Nazis, they are transformed from respected individuals into obedient, animal-like automatons.
In Night. People in concentration camps tried to protect each other but struggled very hard to do so. Sometimes, they barely had a chance to begin with. For example, Elie witnessed someone kill himself because they already committed all he had left to taking care of a family member and was stuck. “A terrible thought crossed my mind: What if he had wanted to be rid of his father?
The first example of this is before Elie and his father even arrive at Auschwitz. They are forced to stand in cattle cars for days with a lack of both food and water. The conditions were so intense that people began to die and hallucinate. “We began to be tortured by thirst. Then the heat became unbearable” The scene highlights the inhumane conditions the prisoners were subjected to and eluded to the horror they will face when they arrive at the camps.
Elie was held captive in concentration camps from 1944-1945. During his time in the concentration camps, he became grateful for what he had, overcame countless obstacles, and more importantly kept fighting until he was free. [The Holocaust is very important to learn about because it can teach you some important life lessons.] You should always be grateful for what you have, no matter what the circumstances are. This lesson can be learned when Elie says, “After my father’s death, nothing could touch me any more”(109).
In the story Night, a memoir about the narrator Elie Wiesel states, “ What are you, my God?” (Wiesel 66). The insufferable concentration camps made the narrator think twice about his beliefs. Two relatable themes that connects to inhumanity in the memoir is the way that silence altered Elie in the concentration camps and the words and sighting that scarred Elies forever. A theme in Night is the way that silence altered Elie in the concentration camps.