Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lived changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4). This would change in the coming weeks, as Jews are segregated, sent to camps, and both physically and emotionally abused. These changes and abuse would dehumanize men and cause them to revert to basic instincts. Wiesel and his peers devolve from civilized human beings to savage animals during the course of Night. Segregation from the rest of society begins the dehumanization of Sighet Jews. The first measure taken by the Hungarian Police against Jews is to label them with yellow stars. Early in Night, while life is still normal despite German occupation of their town, Wiesel explains: “Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yellow star” (11). This decree is demoralizing to Jews because it labels them and sets them apart from the rest of Sighet’s population. Like trees marked for logging or dogs marked with owner tags, many people in Sighet are marked with yellow stars, to reveal their Jewish faith. Avni describes Wiesel and the Jews as being “propelled out of himself, out of humanity, out of the world as he knew it” (Avni 140). The Jews are taken out of the normal lives they have led for years and are beginning to follow new rules... ... middle of paper ... ...ely so, since they are so close to death. Their lives are only about death. 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). The prisoners not only revert to animal instincts, but experience such mental trauma that normal life with other people may be years away. Night dramatically illustrates the severe dehumanization that occurred under Hitler’s rule.
The book, Night, by Eliezer (Elie) Wiesel, entails the story of his childhood in Nazi concentration camps all around Europe. Around the middle of the 20th century in the early 1940s, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi army traveled around Europe in an effort to exterminate the Jewish population. As they went to through different countries in order to enforce this policy, Nazi officers sent every Jewish person they found to a concentration camp. Often called death camps, the main purpose was to dispose of people through intense work hours and terrible living conditions. Wiesel writes about his journey from a normal, happy life to a horrifying environment surrounded by death in the Nazi concentration camps. Night is an amazingly
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
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 Work Sample 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.”
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 the beginning of the story Wiesel explains the effect the Germans had upon the Jews in Sighet. Prior to the complete occupation of the Germans the Jews had a vivid image of the officers which Moishe the Beadle explains “You don’t understand… I succeeded in coming back.” (Wiesel 7). He uses this to imply that the Germans are to be feared, and that he escape by a slim chance. Wiesel ignores this, however Moishe explains what is not as the first step of dehumanization. Not only does Moishe talk about him escaping but he mentions the certain disgust he felt “Without passion or haste. They shot their prisoners” (Wiesel 6). Wiesel uses this quote to integrate the juxtaposition of what the Jews believed to the reality, because shortly after the Germans turn against the Jews. Later in the story the Germans arrives in the village which the Jews ignore as the first sign. Wiesel explains “German soldiers--- with their steel helmets and their death’s-head emblem. Still, our first impressions of the Germans were reassuring”, which he uses to compare the prediction to the reality of the matter (Wiesel 9). This is an example of the Juxtaposition that Wiesel uses to convey the message that people have numbed there feeling towards
Inked on the pages of Elie Wiesel’s Night is the recounting of him, a young Jewish boy, living through the mass genocide that was the Holocaust. The words written so eloquently are full of raw emotions depict his journey from a simple Jewish boy to a man who was forced to see the horrors of the world. Within this time period, between beatings and deaths, Wiesel finds himself questioning his all loving and powerful God. If his God loved His people, then why would He allow such a terrible thing to happen? Perhaps Wiesel felt abandoned by his God, helpless against the will of the Nazis as they took everything from him.
The violent actions of the Germans during this event force an image upon them that conveys the message that the Germans had little respect for the life of a person, specifically that of a follower of Judaism, and their capability to act viciously. If the Germans are acting so cruelly and begin to act this way as an instinct towards the Jews, they are losing the ability to sympathize with other people. This would be losing the one thing that distinguishes a human from any other species, and this quote is an example of the dehumanization of the victim, as well as the perpetrator. Later on in the night, all the Jewish prisoners discover their fate at the camps and what will happen to people at the crematorium. They respond by saying to the people around them that they “.can’t let them kill us like that, like cattle in the slaughterhouse” (Wiesel 31).
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.”
Once again the Jews were picked as scapegoats to help push the political and social agendas of those who held higher office in the form of the Holocaust. Through the processes of propaganda and mass media, the Nazi party was able to desensitize an entire nation of people towards the process of dehumanization. In the reading of Elie Wiesel’s novel Night we were able to gain a personal first hand account of what atrocities were committed against these people in the process of stripping them of their humanity. Upon entering the concentration camps, Eliezer gives us insight into the internal feelings that one experiences when he is stripped of his humanity. He states, “never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes” (Wiesel
On January 30, 1933, Hitler rose to power, during his time of power Jews had been dehumanized, reduced to little more than “things” by the Nazis. Many examples of how they had been dehumanized are shown in the novel, Night by Elie Wiesel. For example, the Jews were stripped of their identity, they were abused, and they treated each other with a lack of dignity and voice. To begin with, Jews were stripped of their identity when “every Jew had to wear the yellow star”(Wiesel 11). They were forced to wear the yellow badge in order to be identified as a Jew.
“Hitler won’t be able to do us any harm, even if he wants to.” So begins the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel an autobiographical work about Elie’s struggle to survive the Holocaust while living at multiple concentration camps. Beginning at age 15, Elie Wiesel moves from a young man questioning the accounts of German hatred, to becoming a witness of many inhumane acts brought upon people. Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, describes instances of inhumane acts on the Jews at Berkenau-Auswitz, at Buna, and on the march to Gleiwitz.
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.
“I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?”([Wiesel],96). This quote refers to the smiles Wiesel saw at the concentration camps, he is wondering how any one could smile in such a troubling time like this. After everything they have been through they could potentionailly find happiness throughtout this. The Nazis dehumanized the Jews showing inhuman actions towards them. Inhuman, Inhumanity is the quality or state of being cruel or barbarous. In Night, Wiesel exhibits that exposure to a cold blooded, hostile world prompts the devastation of confidence and personality.
The novel Night tells the vivid story of the author, Eliezer Wiesel’s, life. The autobiography explains Elie’s struggle as a Jewish boy to maintain faith. The pious twelve-year-old, begins his life with a great deal of loyalty, but has trouble with the idea of God after the Holocaust begins. Eliezer cannot fathom the fact that there could be a God that would allow so much cruelty and suffering. The addition of the yellow star began the holocaust for his community; it was a death sentence accessory. Eliezer’s father believed it would pass by them, saying, “The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal…” (Wiesel 11). The irony in that phase was shown when his father died for that very reason, the yellow star.