In the book Night the character Eliezer faces many challenges and sees many things. But the most prominent feature of all the death camps that Eliezer is in was Dehumanization.Dehumanization is what the S.S. used to keep the jews in line in the concentration camps while they were in a animal like state where it’s every man for himself.Therefore this proves that dehumanization is a process that was used by the SS to keep the Jews in check by using the crematorium,beatings,and executions to make the Jews less human. To start, the jews were dehumanized by the fact that if they didn't work or got sick they would most likely end up in the crematorium, they be alive as they go into the crematorium so the SS didn't have to waste a bullet to kill them with. For example our character Eliezer lost his dad to the crematorium because his dad was dying of dysentery. “They must have taken him away before day break and taken him to the crematorium. Perhaps he was still breathing.(Wiesel 112)” That is an example of the crematorium if you were sick, but what if you were unable to work or too small ...
In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when “They had orders to shoot anyone who could not sustain the pace. Their fingers on the triggers, they did not deprive themselves of the pleasure. If one of us stopped for a second, a quick shot would eliminate the filthy dog” (Wiesel 85). This shows how cruel and heartless the guards were to the jews. They were what influenced the two main inhumanities that occurred in this novel. Two significant themes related to inhumanity discussed in the book Night by Elie Wiesel are Loss of Faith and becoming closer to love ones.
Throughout Night, the bond that Eliezer has with his father Chlomo passes through a rocky course, but eventually becomes stronger due to the isolation and ultimately the death of Chlomo. This rocky course has events that that go from being inseparable in Birkenau, to feeling as though he is a burden. In between, there are times where Elizer’s relationship is clearly falling apart and then being fixed. The camps greatly influence the father-son relationship that Elie and Chlomo have, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for worse. Originally in 1941 when the Wiesel family was living in Sighet, Eliezer took Chlomo for granted, as any child would. Little did he know that their relationship would permanently change forever.
After reading your novel, Night, I felt a mix of sadness and anger. The cruelty of the Nazi regime to the innocent Jewish people is a crime that cannot be forgotten because, as you said, it is like a victory for the Nazis when their crimes are erased from human memory. One of the most shocking scenes from the novel occurs near the beginning, where babies are being burned by the truckload. Children too young to resist burned alive because they could not work in the camps. I cannot even imagine how it must have felt to the mothers and fathers of those children to watch that. Another shocking scene was when the train was going to WHEEERE, and the dead were thrown out of the train. After suffering and when faced with harsh conditions, people were
In the novel, Night, by Elie Wiesel, there were numerous examples of dehumanization. Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazis gradually reduced the Jews to little more than things, which were trouble to them. The first example is found in the third chapter, “I was a body. Perhaps less than even that: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.” This reveals how the characters are completely ripped apart from the world, so much so that they are no longer even refer to themselves as humans. A German officer told the Jews “There are eighty of you in this wagon…if anyone is missing, you’ll be shot, like dogs…” (Weisel 22). This shows that the Germans thought nothing and had little to no respect for the Jews. The subject continues as they are split up by sex as an SS officer announces to a pack of Jews, Men to the left! Women to the right!” (Wiesel 27). They were treated like animals instead of humans. Dehumanization of the camps is added to the novel to allow the reader to get a more in-depth and realistic look into the tragic times for many Jews.
In this world, people go through the process of dealing with both empathy and malice. As a matter of fact, almost everyone has been through times where maybe they feel understood by some and misunderstood by others. Specifically, in the book “Night”, by Elie Wiesel, a character named Madame Schachter goes through the experience of fellow Jews displaying empathy and malice during in result to her behavior. Along with this, the reactions reveal just how inconsiderate we can act when in uncomfortable situations. One example of the malice and lack of sympathy they provided her was during the cattle car ride to Auschwitz. During this ride, she went a bit insane due to the devastating separation of her family. Elie explains, “She received several blows to the head, blows that could have been
During the Holocaust era, a third of all Jewish people alive at the time were murdered by the Germans. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, the systematic killing of the Jewish people was happening all around him. Although Wiesel does not use the word “genocide,” his account of his experience shows that it was definitely genocide that he witnessed.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, is an account about his experience through concentration camps and death marches during WWII. In 1944, fifteen year old Wiesel was one of the many Jews forced onto cattle cars and sent to death and labor camps. Their personal rights were taken from them, as they were treated like animals. Millions of men, women, children, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled people, and Slavic people had to face the horrors the Nazi’s had planned for them. Many people witnessed and lived through beatings, murders, and humiliations. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish
callous to the death of their peers, and going so far as to murder fellow
Adriana Throughout the narrative Night, the author Elie Wiesel, a young teen who was very confident in his faith, experiences multiple hardships that cause him to question what he once believed to be true. His religion stayed strong until it became obvious to him that God was causing his people to suffer. When Eliezer was just a young boy at fifteen years old, he was extremely interested in Judaism, he wanted to learn everything he possibly could. However, his father did not want him to study the Cabbala until he was thirty years old. Eliezer could not wait this long, so he sought wisdom from a man named Moshe Beadle.
In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel had to go through many obstacles and changes throughout his time in the concentration camps. The prisoners suffered many different trials and tribulations such as dehumanization. Dehumanization is the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities. The prisoners of Auschwitz faced dehumanization, which lead to starvation, death, and terrorism. A lot of the events that happened were dehumanizing to Eliezer, his father and their fellow Jews. In Night, the events that happened in the concentration camps left their scar on Elie Wiesel and affected his attitude, outlook, and identity.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald writes “He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized”. This idea of how people could become almost unimaginably cruel due to dehumanization corresponds with the Jews experience in the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the ruthless massacre of Jewish people, and other people who were consider to be vermin to the predetermined Aryan race in the 1940s. One holocaust survivor and victim was Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of Night. Wiesel was one of the countless people to go through the horrors of the concentration camps, which dehumanized people down to their animalistic nature, an echo of their previous selves. Dehumanization worsens over time in Night because of how the Jews treated each other, and how Elie changed physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Dehumanization was a big part of these camps. The Nazis would kick innocent Jewish families and send them to concentration or death camps. The main way they dehumanized these Jewish people is when they take all their possessions. In Night they go around taking all there gold and silver, make them leave their small bags of clothing on the train, and finally give them crappy clothing. All this reduces their emotions; they go from owing all these possessions to not having a cent to their name. If I was in that situation I would just be in shock with such a huge change in such a short amount of time. The next way they dehumanized the Jewish people were they stopped using names and gave them all numbers. For example in Night Eliezer’s number was A-7713. Not only were all their possessions taken, but also their names. Your name can be something that separates you from another person. Now they are being kept by their number, almost as if that’s all they are, a number. If I was in their place I would question my importance, why am I here, am I just a number waiting to be replaced? The third way they were dehumanized was that on their “death march” they were forced to run nonstop all day with no food or water. If you stopped or slowed down, you were killed with no regards for your life. The prisoners were treated like cattle. They were being yelled at to run, run faster and such. They were not treated as equal humans. If the officers were tired, they got replaced. Dehumanization affected all the victims of the Holocaust in some sort of way from them losing all their possessions, their name, or being treated unfairly/ like animals.
Eliezer also becomes aware of the cruelty of which he himself is capable. Everything he experiences in the war shows him how horribly people can treat one another—a revelation that troubles him deeply. The first insensible cruelty Eliezer experiences is that of the Nazis. Yet, when the Nazis first appear, they do not seem horrible in any way. The Jews’ first impression was that they were actually polite people. So many parts of the Holocaust are so crazy to believe, but perhaps the most difficult to understand is how human beings could so horrifically slaughter millions of innocent Jews. Elie shows how evil these people were by sharing stories of what they did to make the prisoners inhumane. Night also demonstrates that cruelty creates cruelty. Instead of comforting each other in times of difficulty, the prisoners respond to their situation by turning against one another. At one point, a Kapo tells Elie that every man must be for himself and care about no one else or he will be killed. It is significant that a Kapo makes this remark to the Elie, because Kapos themselves were prisoners placed in charge of other prisoners. They enjoyed a relatively better quality of life in the camp, but they helped the Nazis in achieving their goal and often behaved cruelly toward prisoners underneath them. At the beginning of the fifth chapter, Eliezer calls them “functionaries of death.” The Kapos’ position symbolizes the way the Holocaust’s cruelty created cruelty, turning people against each other, as surviving became the only
The Holocaust was a big event in our history and it is extremely important to learn what happened to prevent it from occurring again. The Jews were striped from society for no reason except they had different beliefs then the Nazis.They lost their basic rights and were treated like animals. Dehumanization was the easiest way to get rid of the Jews. That was made possible by the camps robbing them of their names, clothes, and personal
According to the definition, inhumane is described as an individual without compassion for misery or sufferings. The novel Night by the author Elie Wiesel, illustrates some aspects of inhumanity throughout the book. It is evident in the novel that when full power is given to operate without restraint, the person in power becomes inhumane. There are many examples of inhumanity in this novel. For instance, "Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky." Through this quote Elie is explaining his first night at camp and what he saw will be in his head forever - unforgettable. In my opinion, the section in the novel when the Germans throw the babies into the chimney is very inhuman. An individual must feel no sympathy or feelings in order to take such a disturbing action. In addition to that "For more than half an hour stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed." This is also very inhumane example since the child's weight wasn’t enough to snap his neck when he was hung and so he is slowly dying painful death as all Jewish people walk by him, being forced to watch the cruelty.