Dehumanization in the novel Night, is shown through the actions observed by Elie Wiesel. One example is when he first arrives to Auschwitz and gets a number tattooed on himself, in which it robs the humanity and identification of him. Another example is when the selection process of prisoners is shown either between being healthy or not. So, if the person was deemed sick or unhealthy they would be sent to the gas chambers because the S.S. officers had no use for them anymore. Lastly, in a box car with hardly any rations to spare, Elie observes a man’s reaction as he throws in bread to the starving Jews, since rations were scarce they fought over it in order to survive. As Elie arrived to Auschwitz, men and woman were separated from each other and forced to get tattoos of numbers. After his first …show more content…
As the novel was coming to an end, Eli describes, “One day when we had come to a stop, a worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest,” (Wiesel 100). Because the men in the box cars were lacking rations, when they saw the chance of free food, they took that chance as a do or die response. That means each man was on the verge of dying from starvation and they saw the few crumbs from the bread as something that could save them from their death beds. However, the man was amused by the men beating each up for the ration because he’s never seen how much of animal man can turn into given the right circumstances. The Nazi’s felt that the Jewish men on the freight cars were already heading to their deaths along with their already deceased friends and family, so they didn’t give them any food due to that aspect. Dehumanization is shown because the ones who lived in fear actually turned into the ones conflicting
In Elie Wiesel’s novel Night, Wiesel writes about the experiences of Eliezer, his family, and fellow Jews, he explained how the Nazis gradually changes the way the Jews lived little by little. Dehumanization is the process of stripping a person of every quality that makes him human and changing them to fit their needs. Dehumanizing started when Eliezer and other Jews in his community are evacuated from their homes in Sighet. They were transported in cattle cars which related the Jews to no more than livestock. After the harsh transportation the Jews arrived at Auschwitz a concentration camp where Eliezer spent many months of his life. They were whipped, ran, and starved till some of the Jews could not take it. In Elie Wiesel book he explains how he found the stamina to survive these cruel conditions.
Dehumanization played a significant role throughout Elie Wiesel's "Night". In many historic references to the Holocaust the killing of the Jews were described as "methodical and systematical"(The Jewish Outreach Institute), though this is true, these heinous crimes were made even worse by the dehumanizing and appalling treatment and conditions that the Jews were put through. Here are some examples:
Dehumanization Makes You Show no Emotion Millions of Jews had no emotion when they were getting dehumanized in the concentration camps. Night is a book about Elie Wiesel, a 15 year old Jewish boy who gets taken to Auschwitz. The memoir goes over all of the terrible things Elie experienced at his time in the camp. In Night, Elie Wiesel demonstrates that when being dehumanized, there is zero emotion involved. He shows this when his father is beaten, when he watches other Jews get hung, and when his father dies.
“He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized.” Elie and his family just wanted to live a normal life. They didn’t have very much money, but were happy with the state they were in. One day, SS officers showed up and took Elie and his family away. Not knowing where they were going, they were obviously scared. Once they finally got there, they realized what they were in for, and that Moishe the Beadle was right. In Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, the German Army dehumanizes Elie Wiesel and the rest of the Jewish prisoners by depriving them of love, safety, and physiological needs.
The holocaust took the lives of six million persons, Jews, Catholics, and homosexuals. Night a memoir by Elie Wiesel was a book about the life as a Jew in the 1940’s. He explains how he suffered during the year that he was there, the camps he was at. The pain that he went thru getting separated from his mother, finding out that her and his sister Tzipora got sent to the crematorium. Life for a Jew in the 1940’s suck. Elie went thru dehumanization because of the way he gets treated in the concentration camps, from getting called dogs to being choosen like cattle.
In Night a memoir by Elie Wiesel, he uses imagery, simile, and connotation to demonstrate the effects of dehumanization and what affect it has on people.
Elie Wiesel was a young boy strongly devoted to his faith, but it quickly dwindled as he experienced dehumanization. Throughout the novel Night, The Nazis conducted many acts of dehumanization upon the Jewish citizens. The Nazis harshly targeted the Jews’ humanity, and gradually softened their perception of being human. The inhumane treatment began in their very own town of Sighet and continued into various concentration camps they were forced into. Jews were brutalized in these camps and experienced many forms of mental and physical abuse. They were given tattoos in the camps, which was quite demeaning. They physically mistreated them, starved them and separated them from their loved ones.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, imagery is employed to show the dehumanization of the Jewish people by the Nazis as the Jews develop the “survival of the fittest” mentality, and as Eliezer looses the ability to express emotions. Wiesel uses imagery of the Jews’ “survival of the fittest” mentality to show the dehumanization of the Jews who are forced to endure treacherous conditions in the concentration camps. The enslaved Jews experience the worst forms of inhumane treatment. Pushed beyond their ability to deal with the oppressing starvation, cold, disease, exhaustion, and cruelty, the Jews lose their sanity and morality. Thus, Wiesel refers to the Jews as, “wild beasts of prey with animal hatred
The Holocaust was a horrific time period when over six million Jewish people were systematically exterminated by the Nazi government. Throughout this period, the Jews were treated particularly inhumane because the Nazi viewed their ethnicities as a disease to humanity. Dehumanization is a featured theme in Elie Wiesel’s novel about the Holocaust since he demonstrated numerous examples of the severe conditions endured by the Jewish people. The nonfiction story Night by Elie Wiesel focuses on inhumanity and reveals human beings are capable of committing great atrocities and behaving cruelly, when such actions are condoned by society, peer pressure, and ethical beliefs. Elie Wiesel uses literary devices to produce a consistent theme of inhumanity.
“Night” by Elie Wiesel explains how dehumanization occurred during a weak point in human history.
The memoir Night written by Elie Wiesel's, uncovers the monstrous acts inflicted upon the Jews, by the Nazi party. Throughout The years, Jews were acquainted or witnessed death and suffering through every perspective. Some were able to survive while others met a slow painful death. In the precise memoir Night, The Nazi soldiers were unfortunately successful in exterminating Jews in large number due to their prominent tactic of death humanization. Dehumanization is by far, the worst technique of executing a human being. I gaped and cringed when analyzing the complications young Eliezer and his father had to endure and sustain. The process of dehumanization is one that unravels a mind and breaks a human being down to a pulp physically,
Elie and his family were packed into cattle cars and taken to Auschwitz. As the train arrived, they saw smoke rising from chimneys and were assailed by the horrific smell of burning flesh (Wiesel, 2008).
When Elie Wiesel, author of Night was just 15 years old, he and his family were taken by cattle car to a concentration camp in Auschwitz. From there, he endured ten months of torture and dehumanization in three different work camps before being liberated. In this lesson, we will learn more about the dehumanization experienced in Night.
Dehumanization is the act of taking one’s human qualities away from them, this can be done using voice and also using actions. During the time of the Holocaust, the Nazi’s used their power to abuse and dehumanize the Jewish people. They would beat and kill them, they would yell at them and they stripped the Jews of their dignity and rights. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, one recurring theme is the dehumanization of the Jews. Throughout Night by Elie Wiesel, one can see the theme of dehumanization through the way the Nazi’s treated the Jews, spoke to the Jews, and how the Jews treated one another.
These examples show the ignorance and lack of action by the people of Germany and surrounding countries, as well as the helplessness of the Jews during the Holocaust. While in the ghetto of Sighet, Elie witnesses the brutality the Hungarian police use to control the Jewish people. “The Hungarian police struck out with truncheons and rifle butts, to right and left, without reason… their blows falling upon old men and women….” (25) Later on, German people do nothing to help the concentration camp victims when they pass through towns between camps. Finally, when riding the cattle car from Gleiwitz to Buchanan, citizens throw bread in the cars in order to watch the Jews fight for amusement. The quotes “They stopped and stared after us, but otherwise showed no surprise” (105) and “Dozens of starving men fought each other to death for a few crumbs. The German workmen took a lively interest in this spectacle” (105) display that the common public were cruel because they ignored Jewish persecution and even mocked it in a sense. They were bystanders. This relates to the theme because it shows how inaction can be worse than beating; because Jews received no help from the people around them, they were forced to endure the Holocaust. This is truly