Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

Not many are able to watch others get tortured and killed both mentally and physically everyday. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, explores the events which dehumanized Eliezer and the other Jews. The dehumanization of Jews help with the “final solution”. In the memoir, Eliezer goes through a brutal journey which causes him to lose his family and identity. Also he forgets the feeling of love and care throughout the memoir.

The Nazi army dehumanized the Jewish people by depriving them of their physiological needs. Elie and his father were deprived of food, water, and shelter. Elie describes the camp as “The camp looked as though it had been through an epidemic: empty and dead” (47). The people of the camp were so deprived of food the looked as though they were dead. Mr.

The book, Survival in Auschwitz, depicts the story of an Italian Jew in a a concentration camp with unfathomable conditions. The prisoners here are treated as animals and pieces, their primary task to serve the German officers. The SS officers, and all the other men in a position of authority at this camp, try their very hardest to break the souls of the captives and reduce them the number tattooed on their arm. While the Nazis try to destroy the men in many ways throughout the course of this novel, the two things that demonstrate their dehumanization most strongly, are? the process the prisoners undergo upon arrival at the camp, and the way the selections of who will live or die are carried out.

Tales of real world dehumanization serve as reminders to treat others with respect and humanity. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, the author recounts his own disturbing story as a holocaust survivor who endures many hardships during his time in the concentration camps during World War Two ran by the harsh at the time German Nazis. One theme that Wiesel integrates throughout the novel is the dehumanization of the Jewish people at the concentration camps. SS Officers, Oberkapos,and even Jews themselves behave in certain ways that dehumanize the prisoners around them and even themselves. The author makes use of the theme of dehumanization through a disregard for civilized human necessities, acts of violence and horror, and how the oppressors and oppressed talk to themselves and each other.

The description captures the profound loss of identity and dignity experienced by the prisoners, which highlights the psychological impact of the awful rituals imposed by the Nazis. Additionally, Wiesel illustrates the desolation experienced in the camps not just due to appearance but also in spirit as he references

From then on I had no other name” (Page 42). Through Wiesel's quote, it portrays the loss of personal identity and humanity showing the dehumanizing acts of self-identity. Additionally, in the concentration camps, violence was normalized which would often lead to prisoners being beaten as shown in the quote “The kapos were beating us again, I no longer felt pain” (Page 36). The quote summarizes the physical suffering prisoners went through along with the normalization of violence and cruelty within the camp leading the prisoners to be desensitized to their suffering. Dehumanization was a common theme used during the Holocaust to bring prisoners down and strip them of humanity.

Throughout our daily lives, we are consistently presented with news of fear and death. However, these events are so numb to people because people believe there is nothing that can be done, nor do they have room in heart to even try to make changes. Elie Wiesel's Night demonstrates many of the horrendous conditions of the Jews. From being burned alive in the crematories, to being shot right on the spot, the S.S soldiers had no remorse towards the Jews. In spite of their persecution, the Jews showed immense devotion to their religion and remained faithful to their God.

During the 1930’s in Europe Jewish people were persecuted. As Hitler continued to rise to power, his hatred in the Jews penetrated through society.In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie discusses his experience of being a Jewish during that time period by narrating his transitions from being sent to live in the ghettos and being sent to multiple concentration camps. Through mapping these experiences he also shows the struggle of having faith in humanity and in God. In Night Elie uses different literary techniques: point of view, imagery and metaphor to display how witnessing inhumanity can cause someone to be dehumanized.

It is said that dehumanization is not a given destiny, but a result of violence from oppressors. During the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler aspires to dehumanize the Jews. In Eliezer Wiesel's novel Night, he details his experience as a victim of Hitler's treacherous crimes. In order to achieve his goals, Hitler employs physical abuse, mental torture, and embarrassment to his advantage.

A Crime Against Humanity “One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live” (Wiesel 109). In Eliezer Wiesel's memoir Night, Wiesel goes through a life changing experience in which he loses his faith in humanity. Wiesel experiences all the stages of genocide throughout his teen years. Although Wiesel does not use the word “genocide”, his account of his experience shows that it was definitely genocide that he witnessed.

Dehumanization Imagine being considered and treated as less than human. You no longer have your human rights- perhaps your house is taken away, or you are forcibly relocated. Or maybe, your freedom and your identity are taken away from you. You are no longer treated like a person, now more like an animal. These cruel acts of dehumanization are present frequently in the novel, Night by Elie Wiesel.

They left them to starve with little food, to work in all terrible,deplorable, uncouth conditions all for them to feel and to be treated like vile animals. Prisoners even acted like animals fighting for food,water and clothing - anything to get them to live one more day. A lack of compassion for others can not change what they saw in the concentration camp ”bela katz- son of a big tradesman from our town-had arrived at Birkenau with the first transport, a week before us. When heard of our arrival, he managed to get word to us that, having been chosen for his strength, he had himself put his father’s own body into the crematoria oven “ (Wiesel 33) Having to put his own father into his own death bed is a harrowing experience and not being able to protest at the fear of his own death is an irrefutable memory that will never be forgotten. The nazis and their unvarnished mistreatment,ciless hostility that showed no compassion for the prisoners “ then came the march past the victims two men were no longer alive .their tongues were hanging out swollen and bluish . but the third rope was still moving; the child too light was still breathing ….. And so he remained for more than half an hour lingering between life and death,writhing before our eyes.and we were forced to look at him at close range he was still alive when i passed him .his tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished”(Wiesel 65) . death

Primo Levi, in his novel Survival in Auschwitz (2008), illustrates the atrocities inflicted upon the prisoners of the concentration camp by the Schutzstaffel, through dehumanization. Levi describes “the denial of humanness” constantly forced upon the prisoners through similes, metaphors, and imagery of animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization (“Dehumanization”). He makes his readers aware of the cruel reality in the concentration camp in order to help them examine the psychological effects dehumanization has not only on those dehumanized, but also on those who dehumanize. He establishes an earnest and reflective tone with his audience yearning to grasp the reality of genocide.

There are many times one can see the Nazi’s brutalizing the Jews throughout the novel. From the moment the Nazi’s took the Jews as prisoners they were being mistreated. They were loaded into cattle cars, a vehicle made to transport animals, to the point where they were so full people could hardly breathe. They were sent to concentration camps where they were tortured and treated as slaves. As they entered the camps they were humiliated, SS officers yelled at them to “‘Strip! Hurry up! Raus! Hold on only to your belt and your shoes”(Wiesel 35). They were sent to cold showers and bathed in a sulfur-scented soap to be identifiable by their scent. They received only one small ration of food a day, these people were starved. Not only were they cared for like a group of worthless animals but some were never even given a chance.

The Jews had been starved while being detained in forced labor camp. Those who weren’t fit to work were killed and cremated. The most eye-opening description of the Jewish peoples’ state in the concentration camp came at the very end of the book. After being freed, Wiesel looked in a mirror for the first since his arrival at the camp. Wiesel described his reflection as a “corpse” and stated “the look in his eyes… has never left me.” (Wiesel 115). Not only had the Nazis carried out a brutal campaign on the Jews’ physical being, but they had also infiltrated deep into their psyche. Upon arrival at camps, all Jews’ were forced to hand over all of their clothes and wearing matching uniforms. After that, the prisoners’ were sent to the barber. Wiesel described the process, stating, “[The barbers’] clippers tore out our hair, shaved every hair on our bodies.” (Wiesel 35). After this process, every Jew was tattooed with a number. This process lead to the ego-death of every prisoner. They were no longer people: they were numbers. Nothing differentiated one Jew from another, besides the numbers tattooed on them. This horrendous act could only be classified as psychological torture, carried out by monsters who had lost control of their own