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Dehumanization introduction
Essay on dehumanization
Dehumanization introduction
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The Nazis used dehumanization to strip the Jews of their human qualities or personality. They made the Jews into what they believed that they were, animals.It slowly melted the Jews anger into despair and desperation. Their standards of living were lowered incredibly. The rights that were stolen from them eventually felt like novelties. For example, having a bathroom was not a requirement for the places they stayed in. The basic need of a bathroom was not given to the Jews in concentration camps. Fear made them run like a scared cat and even grown men cry like a newborn baby. In many places Jews were massacred in one place such as a colony of ants might be exterminated in a house. By the end they lost their faith in God and some their will to live. …show more content…
Before that, they were forced to give their valuables to the Nazis and only awhile after that, they were forced to leave their belongings behind. They were forced to classify themselves as Jews with a yellow star and numbers. This slowly made them feel worthless. When they were forced into ghettos, their rights were deliberately taken away in stages. Some examples of this are the inability to go to restaurants, cafes, trains, synagogues, and the 6:00 curfew. In their first concentration camp, Elie Wiesel said, “‘If that is true, then I don't want to wait. I'll run into the electrified barbed wire. That would be easier than a slow death in the flames.’” (Wiesel 33). This is an example of when the Nazis used close-to-death situations to scare the Jews into considering suicide. In the the middle
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 his memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel describes the horrors he experienced during the Holocaust. One prominent theme throughout the work is the evolution of human relationships within the camp, specifically between fathers and sons. While they are marching between camps, Elie speaks briefly with Rabbi Eliahu, who lost sight of his son on the long journey. Elie says he has not seen the rabbi’s son, but after Rabbi Eliahu leaves, he remembers seeing the son. He realizes that the rabbi’s son did not lose track of his father but instead purposefully ran ahead thinking it would increase his chances of survival. Elie, who has abandoned nearly all of his faith in God, cannot help but pray, saying, “ ‘ Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done’ ” (Wiesel 91). In this moment, his most fervent hope is that he will remain loyal to his father and not let his selfishness overcome his dedication to his father. However, he is soon no longer able to maintain this hope.
The author of the book Night , Elie Wiesel, explains his life, as well as his fellow Jews, as a young Jewish boy in concentration camps. The Jews who were sent to concentration camps were put under extremely harsh conditions and were treated like nothing but animals while under the control of the Germans. Wiesel illustrates a picture of these horrific events in his book NIght. He also describes the gruesome conditions the Jews were forced through while under the power of the Germans.
Night by Elie Wiesel displays the effect of how Nazis took away the Jews’ basic rights
Family and Adversity It is almost unimaginable the difficulties victims of the holocaust faced in concentration camps. For starters they were abducted from their homes and shipped to concentration camps in tightly packed cattle cars. Once they made it to a camp, a selection process occurred. The males were separated from the females.
callous to the death of their peers, and going so far as to murder fellow
Authors sometimes refer to their past experiences to help cope with the exposure to these traumatic events. In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the devastating and horrendous events of the Holocaust, one of the world’s highest points for man’s inhumanity towards man, brutality, and cruel treatment, specifically towards the Jewish Religion. His account takes place from 1944-1945 in Germany while beginning at the height of the Holocaust and ending with the last years of World War II. The reader will discover through this novel that cruelty is exemplified all throughout Wiesel's, along with the other nine million Jews’, experiences in the inhumane concentration camps that are sometimes referred to as “death factories.”
Although first impressions of the German soldiers were reassuring to Wiesel and many Jews at first, shortly after they had arrived the Jew’s freedoms were taken without any warning. German soldiers took the Jew’s rights one at a time. First, Jews were not allowed to leave there house for three days. Then, they were no longer allowed to keep their gold, jewels, or valuable items. Wiesel explains, “Everything had to be handed over to the authorities, under penalty of death. My father went down to the cellar and buried out savings” (8). Next, they were forced to wear the yellow star. Eventually, Jews were not allowed to go into restaurants or cafes, to travel the railway, attend synagogue, or go into the street after six o’clock. The last step was that two ghettos were formed in the town of Sighet. It was like they were dogs in a fenced crate, not allowed to go anywhere or do anything. When the Jews started to question Wiesel’s father during the development of these rules, he reassured every one, and acted like it was no big deal. Wiesel’s father settled and acknowledged the situation claiming, “The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don’t die of it…” (Wiesel 9). None of the Jews including Wiesel’s fami...
The Jewish people were targeted, hunted, tortured, and killed, just for being Jewish, Hitler came to office on January 20, 1933; he believed that the German race had superiority over the Jews in Germany. The Jewish peoples’ lives were destroyed; they were treated inhumanly for the next 12 years, “Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust. Approximately six million of these were Jews” (Levy). Hitler blamed a lot of the problems on the Jewish people, being a great orator Hitler got the support from Germany, killing off millions of Jews and other people, the German people thought it was the right thing to do. “To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community” (History.com Staff).
The Nazi’s believed that the Jews were followers of an abhorrent religious doctrine and that were in control of too much influence in the economy, politics, and culture. Many of the decisions made by the Nazi’s when controlling the Jews in the concentrated camps were not official orders from Hitler himself; they felt as tough it would make him happy based on his views and so they carried them out.
Every man, woman, and child has his or her breaking point, no matter how hard they try to hold it back. In Night by Elie Wiesel the main theme of the entire book is the human living condition. The quality of human life is overwhelming because humans have the potential to make amazing discoveries that help all humans. Elie Wiesel endures some of the most cruel living conditions known to mankind. This essay describes the themes of faith, survival, and conformity in Night by Elie Wiesel.
At first, the Jews were not able to leave their house “for three days under, penalty of death” (Wiesel 10). After, the Jews were not able to “own gold, Jewelry, or any valuables” (Wiesel 10). A few days late, all Jews were forced to wear a yellow star. Because of that, the people were able to recognize who was a Jew or not one. After implementation of the yellow star, a new edict removed them the right to “frequent restaurants or cafes to travel by rail, to attend synagogue” (Wiesel 11). Slowly the Jew lost their right as a human being. Later on, all Jews were force to live in two ghettos that was created in Sighet (Wiesel 11). A few week after the creation of the ghettos, Elizer and his fellow Jews were forced to abandon their house and forced into extremely crowded wagons. Within a few months, the Jews slowly lost their rights, belongings and even their
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.
Ghettos, concentration camps, starvation, and deaths. These people were put through everything during this terrible, grueling time. The Nazi forces were overtaking the people day by day throughout Europe. In the ghettos and concentration camps either killers or starvation took the lives of many innocent people. These people did not deserve the treatment they received in such short notice. During the Holocaust the Jewish people should have fought back against the nasty, intolerable Nazis.
At the most basic level, subhumanization is a means to turn people into groups or flocks, just like animals or vermin. It psychologically allows oppressors to see their captives as worthless groups, and strips individuals of their identities. Most believe that the Nazi’s were crazy, but this is far from true in most circumstances. Using rational, strategic thinking alongside logic, subversion of democracy, and idiology, the Nazi’s were able to gain power in a subtle way before the masses realized it (“Prisoner Numbers”). A part of this rational thinking and ideology was forcing names like “rats” or “vermin” upon its victims. Thus, allowing soldiers and enforcers to cope and act how they did because eventually that was how the masses saw the people groupings. Using subconscious ways of subhumanization, the general population saw it fit to kill rats(the minorities), because they were dangerous,disease carrying vermin. The elicit status of the oppressed being “subhuman”, allowed the Germans to rationalise and cope with...