In Blaine Harden’s Escape from Camp 14, Shin Dong-Hyuk was born and raised inside of a concentration camp where he was stripped of his human qualities, brainwashed to follow orders, and deprived of his human rights. The goal of the guards within the camp is to dehumanize the prisoners by breaking them down physically and psychologically so that they feel less than human and hence, not worthy of humane treatment. It is proven throughout the novel that the process of dehumanizing an individual impacts the social contingency of a given society. Emotion is a natural instinct that gives human beings a sense of morality. In Camp 14, emotion is a feeling that remains obscure. Since birth, it is implemented in the prisoners that they are less than human. Through experiencing constant physical and …show more content…
It is apparent that the prisoners are raised to see personal redemption in reporting acts of betrayal against the rules of the camp, due to their desperation to survive. For instance, when Shin overhears his mother and brother planning to escape, he instinctively reports them to the authorities in order to increase his chance for survival. Despite the fact that he betrays his family, he has no regrets and “[is] not ashamed on the day of the executions” (Harden 68). Shin discloses that he is responsible for the execution of his mother and brother, and admits he has made this trade-off to obtain more food and to receive an easier job at school. It is also evident that Shin has become so dehumanized that he believes they deserved to die. In addition, Shin and the other children in the society have become so overly programmed to follow the rules of the camp and, as a result, they became disengaged from morality. When a child ran away from work because he was hungry, “without a second thought, Shin joined his classmates in thrashing Ryu” (Harden 32). Like the other prisoners in the camp, Shin accepted the rules and learned to survive within society by betraying
Throughout humanity, human beings have been faced with ethnic hardships, conflict, and exclusion because of the battle for authority. Hence, in human nature, greed, and overall power consumes the mind of some people. Groups throughout the world yearn for the ability to be the mightiest one. These types of conflicts include ethnic shaming, racial exclusion, physical and verbal abuse, enslavement, imprisonment, and even death. Some of these conflicts were faced in all parts of Europe and the Pacific Region during World War II. During this dark time in history, people like Miss.Breed from Dear Miss Breed took initial action in what she thought was right, and gave hope to Japanese Internment Camp children by supplying books and
Shin Dong-hyuk was born in a labor camp, more specifically known as Camp 14. In this camp, Shin was considered to be living “below the law” (3) because of his father’s brother’s crimes. In this camp, Shin went through things many people couldn’t even fathom. He survived on his own. His mother would beat him, his father ignored him, and he trusted no one. “Before he learned anything else, Shin learned to survive by snitching on all of them.” (3). In this camp, the word “family” did not exist. All of this sounds horrific to many people living outside of North Korea, but that’s just the beginning of it. His life became increasingly worse when his mother and brother made the decision to try and escape the camp. On April 5, 1996, Shins older brother, He Guen, came home. As He Guen was talking to Shin’s mother, he overheard that “his brother was in trouble a...
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.
There are many emotions that Antonio Beaver had to bring out while he was in prison. Antonio said he had many emotions such as being Angry, Sad, Confused, and Depressed. The cell he stayed in was described as Dark, Lonely, and very tight space. The only time he got to talk to family, Friends, was once a month for 5 minutes. Most of Antonio time was in his cell were he could only have 1 hour of outside time a day. Antonio Beaver said even to this day said that it made him so angry how they picked himn and didn’t even go far into his information to prove it was him.
The process of dehumanization is a process which has been repeated throughout history. Dehumanization takes place in the book Night, in which the author of the memoir, Elie Wiesel, is exposed to its effects. He is taken from his family and home, sent to a concentration camp in which he first comes in contact with people who have gone through the process of dehumanization. Most mistake the noun “dehumanization” as the verb “to dehumanize.” Dehumanization is a process, a twisted art; while to dehumanize someone is to persecute in one’s mind and actions whilst the subject being dehumanized still acts and thinks humanly. In a basic summary, to dehumanize is just a step in the process of dehumanization. Dehumanization is a process in which the subject/s are prosecuted (dehumanized), thieved of their family needs, and then stripped of their physiological needs.
How can inhumanity be used to make one suffer? The book Night by Elie Wiesel is about a young Jewish boy named Elie who struggles to survive in Auschwitz, a concentration camp during the Holocaust. Throughout the memoir, there are many instances where inhumanity is portrayed. The theme seen in this novel is inhumanity through discrimination, fear, and survival.
...test, it is hard not to draw some parallels. Milgram noticed that if people did not have direct contact with the people they were inflicting pain on, two-thirds of the subjects inflicted what was considered extreme pain. If they had visual and voice feedback, only forty percent obeyed orders. The number fell to thirty percent if they were in direct contact with the person they were shocking. Browning also points out that the social pressures of conformity were quite apparent. "Within virtually every social collective, the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets the moral norms. If the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?" (Browning, 189) In closing, these men, who appeared to be quite ordinary, became extraordinary in their brutality and killing, no matter what the reason. Decidedly, their contribution to the genocide was quite significant. It is a shame that many received little, or no punishment for the slaughter they participated in.
We know that people react differently than others, like the man who left early compared to all of the other men. Though the experiment only lasted less than a weeks’ time, it showed us that we cannot perform these kind of studies without someone on the outside looking in. It was a tough environment for all of the people involved. From Zimbardo right down to the prisoners, it was a tough time. They hadn’t even started to see the changes in themselves being so wrapped up in the study. People will react to certain situations how they seem fit, even when they don’t realize that they are hurting the people around them at the time. I don’t think that any of the guards made it their intention to hurt anyone, they just hadn’t realized it at the time that what they were doing was wrong. We cannot treat each other as less than human beings. Thanks to Christina Maslach, the project was ended early. Without her having seen what she had, who knows how much worse it would have been for everyone involved. We are all human, and no one deserves to be treated as anything less than so; prisoner or
It is only natural to dismiss the idea of our own personal flaws, for who with a healthy sense of self wanders in thoughts of their own insufficiency? The idea of hypocrisy is one that strikes a sensitive nerve to most, and being labeled a hypocrite is something we all strive to avoid. Philip Meyer takes this emotion to the extreme by examining a study done by a social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, involving the effects of discipline. In the essay, "If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably", Meyer takes a look at Milgram's study that mimics the execution of the Jews (among others) during World War II by placing a series of subjects under similar conditions of stress, authority, and obedience. The main theme of this experiment is giving subjects the impression that they are shocking an individual for incorrectly answering a list of questions, but perhaps more interesting is the results that occur from both ends of the research. Meyer's skill in this essay is using both the logical appeal of facts and statistics as well as the pathetic appeal to emotion to get inside the reader's mind in order to inform and dissuade us about our own unscrupulous actions.
Viktor Frankl's concept regarding survival and fully living was developed through his observations and experiences in the concentration camps. He used his psychiatric training to discern the meanings of observations and to help himself become a better person. He uses analysis to develop his own concepts and describes them in steps throughout the book. When the prisoners first arrived at the camp most of them thought they would be spared at the last moment. The prisoners believed they had a chance of surviving, but this belief was eventually eliminated and it was at this time when the prisoners began to learn how to survive by using their internal strength. A sense of humor had emerged among the prisoners. This humor helped to get through some difficult situations they faced. Viktor also observed how much a person could really endure and still live. Even though the prisoners could not clean their teeth and were deprived of warmth and vitamins, they still were able to survive. The sores and abrasions on their hands did not suppurate despite the dirt that gathered on them from the hard labor. The challenge of staying alive under these wretched conditions was to have and maintain strong internal strength. During the time he spent in the camps, Viktor learned what was needed to survive and how to keep his internal strength despite his weakening external strength. During the second stage of Viktor's psychological reaction, prisoners lost their sense of feeling and emotion toward events that would be emotional to people outside the camps. This was a result of the violent environment, which consisted of beatings of prisoners and the death of many others. The prisoners could no longer feel any disgust or horr...
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 the pursuit of safety, acceptance, and the public good, many atrocities have been committed in places such as Abu Ghraib and My Lai, where simple, generally harmless people became the wiling torturers and murderers of innocent people. Many claim to have just been following orders, which illustrates a disturbing trend in both the modern military and modern societies as a whole; when forced into an obedient mindset, many normal and everyday people can become tools of destruction and sorrow, uncaringly inflicting pain and death upon the innocent.
Through segregation, loss of identity, and abuse, Wiesel and the prisoners around him devolve from civilized human beings into savage animals. The yellow stars begin separation from society, followed by ghettos and transports. Nakedness and haircuts, then new names, remove each prisoner’s identity, and physical abuse in the form of malnourishment, night marches, and physical beatings wear down prisoners. By the end of Night, the prisoners are ferocious from the experiences under German rule and, as Avni puts it, “a living dead, unfit for life” (Avni 129). Prisoners not only revert to animal instincts, but experience such mental trauma that normal life with other people may be years away.
We see that the author’s purpose is to allow the readers to understand that the prisoners were not treated humanly, and allows us to see the negative attitudes the authority had towards the prisoners.
If This Is a Man or Survival in Auschwitz), stops to exist; the meanings and applications of words such as “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to merge and the differences between these opposites turn vague. Continued existence in Auschwitz demanded abolition of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Vulnerability to unending dehumanization certainly directs one to be dehumanized, thrusting one to resort to mental, physical, and social adaptation to be able to preserve one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line distinguishing right and wrong starts to deform. Primo Levi, a survivor, gives account of his incarceration in the Monowitz- Buna concentration camp.