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The conditions in the concentration camps
The conditions in the concentration camps
The conditions in the concentration camps
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One main way the concentration camps dehumanized Elie and his fellow prisoners was through the stripping of their identities. They also do not use the prisoners names, choosing instead to call them by number. “The three ‘veteran’ prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.”(p. 42). Elie was not treated as a human being with a name and an identity, but as a thing, a gear in a machine. The prisoners also face many other examples of dehumanization that eventually degrade their will to live and to go on. All the terrible things they’ve seen weigh heavy on them, and they begin to lose their hope and their faith. Early on, Elie goes past a cremation pit and sees babies being thrown
Self-sufficiency was encouraged throughout the concentration camps, therefore Elie was forced to grow up and leave his innocence behind. Because of this self-reliance, many started to view their friends and family as a burden rather than a motivation.
Wiesel suggests that,“Toward five o’clock in the morning, we were driven out of the barracks. The Kapos beat us once more, but I ceased to feel any pain from their blows.” (27) This quote reveals that the officers did not care what time of day it was if they felt like punishing the prisoners they did. Elie was at the wrong place at the wrong time and saw something he wasn’t supposed to see and was punished. “A-7713! I came forward. A box! He ordered. They brought him a box. Lie down on it! On your stomach! I obeyed. Then I was aware of nothing but the strokes of the whip” (Wiesel 42). This quote shows the cruel punishment that Elie and other Jews endured in the Holocaust. The Nazi’s were cruel and inhumane to the Jews when it came to feeding them and clothing them during the cold winters. “Mountains of prison clothes. On we ran. As we passed, trousers, tunic, shirt, and socks were thrown at us”( Wiesel 27) “ Such outfits! Meir Katz, a giant, had a child’s trousers, and Stern, a think little chap, a tunic which completely swamped him” (Wiesel 27) This quote shows that the Nazi’s did not care if they got the right size shirt or pants or not they passed them out and you got what you
callous to the death of their peers, and going so far as to murder fellow
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.
An estimated 1/3 of all Jewish people who were alive were grotesquely tortured and murdered during the Holocaust. Those who were not murdered went through changes mentally, physically, and spiritually. This changed many people’s identities to where they seemed like a completely different person. Elie was one of the many people whose identity had changed throughout their time at the death camps.
In the book Night, written by Elie Wiesel, according to article five “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel inhuman”. “Elie Wiesel received 25 lashes after witnessing Idek and a polish girl fornicating. Elie Wiesel and his family were sent off to a concentration camp. When they got there, they got there a man told Elie Wiesel to say he is 18 years old and he told Elie Wiesel’s father to say that he is 40 years old so the SS sargent would not split them up. Elie and his father were split up from Elie’s mother and sisters. Elie’s mother and sisters were sent to the fields with the sick people. In article three, Elie Wiesel, his father and other men had to strip naked down to their belt and shoes. The people tossed the babies up in the air because they were
Imagery is one of the most effective methods Wiesel used in his biography to portray forms of inhumanity. “Not far from us, flames, huge flames were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there… small children. Babies” (32). In this case, Elie does not wish to live if his eyes were telling the truth. This alone refers to extreme cruelty, describing the inhumanity in which the suppressed races endured inside the many concentration camps. Following several weeks at work in an electrical-fittings factory, Elie quotes a hanging which he remembers quite well. “He was a young boy from Warsaw… The Lagerälteste
On their way to the concentration camp, a German officer said, “’There are eighty of you in the car… If anyone is missing, you’ll all be shot like “dogs” ”’ (Wiesel 24). This shows that the Germans compared the Jews to dogs or animals, and that the German have no respect towards the Jews. Arrived at the concentration camp, the Jews were separated from their friends and family. The first thing of the wagon, a SS officer said, “’Men to the left! Women to the right!”’ (Wiesel 29). After the separation, Eliezer saw the crematories. There he saw “’a truck [that] drew close and unloaded its hold: small children, babies … thrown into the flames.” (Wiesel 32). This dehumanize the Jews, because they were able to smell and see other Jews burn in the flames. Later on the Jew were forced to leave their cloth behind and have been promise that they will received other cloth after a shower. However, they were force to work for the new cloth; they were forced to run naked, at midnight, in the cold. Being force to work for the cloth, by running in the cold of midnight is dehumanizing. At the camp, the Jews were not treated like human. They were force to do thing that was unhuman and that dehumanized
”Lie down on it! On your belly! I obeyed. I no longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip. One! Two! He took time between the lashes. Ten eleven! Twenty-three. Twenty four, twenty five! It was over. I had not realized it, but I fainted” (Wiesel 58). It was hard to imagine that a human being just like Elie Wiesel would be treating others so cruelly. There are many acts that Elie has been through with his father and his fellow inmates. Experiencing inhumanity can affect others in a variety of ways. When faced with extreme inhumanity, The people responded by becoming incredulous, losing their faith, and becoming inhumane themselves.
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.
Dehumanization Through Elie Wiesel 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.
In his book Night Mr. Elie Wiesel shares his experiences about the camps and how cruel all of the Jews were treated in that period. In fact, he describes how he was beaten and neglected by the SS officers in countless occasions. There are very few instances where decent humans are tossed into certain conditions where they are treated unfairly, and cruel. Mr. Wiesel was a victim of the situation many times while he was in the camps. Yet he did not act out, becoming a brute himself, while others were constantly being transformed into brutes themselves. Mr. Wiesel was beaten so dreadfully horrible, however, for his safety, he decided to not do anything about it. There were many more positions where Mr. Wiesel was abused, malnourished, and easily could have abandoned his father but did not.
There were personal attacks which led to a brutal outcome for millions of people. The attacks were often lead by the Kapos, the supervisors of the camps. As the overseers of the camps, the Nazis dealt leadership to the Kapos. The Kapos themselves were prisoners of the concentration camp; Although prisoners, the Kapos were assigned to barracks full of Jews. Often times Elie had not had the advantage of a charitable Kapo. In Night, Elie tells how he is shocked by what he witnessed,“My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked.” (Wiesel 39). The Kapos were ruthless. They wanted to beat the Jews down even if they were only able to cut small notches into the Jews calm exterior. The Kapos took no pity on the other prisoners and were very harsh. Elie talks of his foreman, Franek, and his especially deep hatred towards Elie, “That presented Franek with the opportunity to torment him and on a daily basis thrash him savagely.” (Wiesel 55). Franek didn’t like Elie when they met nor when they parted. Consequently, the Kapos of the camps were choosing to take out anger on unsuspecting prisoners, often with no logic behind their actions; except to get under their skin.
In 1984, George Orwell presents an overly controlled society that is run by Big Brother. The protagonist, Winston, attempts to “stay human” in the face of a dehumanizing, totalitarian regime. Big Brother possesses so much control over these people that even the most natural thoughts such as love and sex are considered taboo and are punishable. Big Brother has taken this society and turned each individual against one another. Parents distrust their own offspring, husband and wife turn on one another, and some people turn on their own selves entirely. The people of Oceania become brainwashed by Big Brother. Punishment for any uprising rebellions is punishable harshly.
For the Jewish it was a little more strange. When Elie and the rest of the people from Transylvania were just getting in contact with the Germans, they thought they were getting saved from the incoming war and army. On page 7, Elie runs into Moshe the Beadle he is then quoted saying, “They think i'm mad.” This is when Moshe escaped the camps and came back to warm all of his peers about what is happening, and that they need to get out while they can. The whole town was convinced he was a madman, and that he was crazy. They should have listened to him This was one small way that they may have able to avoid the Holocaust themselves. During the Rwandan Genocide the Tutsi knew right away. Within hours the Hutus were mass murdering their own people. The staff at History.com wrote “During this period, local officials and government-sponsored radio stations called on ordinary Rwandan civilians to murder their neighbors.” This is quite different than Elies experience during the Holocaust. The Jews were transferred from their homelands and brought to different concentration camps. When Elie first enters Auschwitz, he enters through a gate that has the writing, “Arbeit macht frei.” Which means work makes you free in english. The whole goal of the camps was to have the Jews work until they could not work anymore. Once you got to that point, you were deemed useless and