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. The Jews’ close relationships slowly deteriorated due to dehumanization. In the beginning the Jews looked out for one another, but once in Auschwitz, everything they once were and believed in started to fade. For example, Akiba Drumer used to be a rabbi, endlessly praying his days away. After being in the concentration camps he loses his faith for God, saying “It’s over, God is no longer with us… I suffer hell in my soul and flesh … How can I believe, how can anyone believe in this God of Mercy?” (p.76-77). After suffering so much, Akiba can’t even believe in his closest relationship of God anymore. This causes the past Rabbi to lose faith in not only god, but in everything else as well. Akiba loses himself abandons the one thing he used to rely on to dehumanization, and ends up accepting his death. Like Akiba Drumer, another man lost to dehumanization was Rabbi Eliahu’s son. The ... ... middle of paper ... ...can only see a corpse. Although Elie’s body remains fine, everything else had died during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was no longer a human. All of the events of the Holocaust broke down the Jews and Elie until they were completely dehumanized. Constant exposure to the worst of people can dehumanize anyone. Dehumanization wasn’t only in WWII, but is still going on in countless places today. Genocides with numerous people losing their identity are happening at this moment, but they are being ignored, just like the Holocaust was at first. Elie’s story of being reduced into nothingness describes horrific events, which pretty much everyone would change if they could. But yet they do nothing for the situation unfolding today. It is possible to stop people from losing their empathy and personality, but action needs to start being taken. Works Cited Night by Elie Wiesel
Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others.
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 an 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 would be alive as they go into the crematorium so the SS didn't have to waste a bullet to kill them.
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.
and humanity. Wiesel shows how the Jews mistreated and were mistreated with word choice and situational irony. Elie, the main the character in the book, gives the reader a personal perspective of being a Jew during the Holocaust. Being a Jew was difficult since the Nazis not only mistreated them, but also gave them false hope which contributed to their dehumanization.
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.
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.”
The Nazis during world War II were extremely cruel towards the Jews. The Nazis dehumanized the Jews. they wanted to make the Jews feel worthless, like slaves. The Nazis didn't want the Jews to feel any different than any other Jew. A few of the many ways the Nazis dehumanized the Jews were; the way they transported them like cattle in the box cars, the way the Nazis made them all the same, and the lifestyle the Nazis gave them in the camps. These actions performed by the Nazis had a lasting effect on Elie Wiesel for the rest of his life.
Elie and the prisoners were dehumanized by depriving them of physiological needs such as food, sleep, and shelter. The second thing the German Army dehumanized the Jews of was love, these included how they were taught to not show affection and love for anyone but themselves and even then they weren’t allowed to care about themselves. The last thing the Germans dehumanized the Jews of was esteem needs. They weren’t allowed to feel confident, given any sign of special treatment, and care about religion. The overall effect of the Germans dehumanization on the Jews was big.They were told basically that they weren’t human as they were assigned numbers instead of a name. How would you feel if you were just called a number for
One might treat others like beast, but is the treated consider human? The novel Night is an autobiography written by Elie Wiesel. He explains the dehumanization process of his family, Elizer, and his fellow Jews throughout WWII. Throughout the novel the Jews changes from civilized humans to vicious beings that have behavior that resembles animal. The process of dehumanization begins after the arrestation of the Jew community leaders. The process continues through the bad treatment given by the Nazi to the Jews, in the concentration camps. Finally the Jews are dehumanized to the point where they begins to go against each other; so that they could have a higher chance of survival, at the end where the Jew were forced to move from camp to camp.
“ Jews listen to me. It’s all I ask of you. I don’t want money or pity. Only listen to me.” (Elie 5). Moshe the Beadle escaped from the hands of the Gestapo and he witnessed the insensitive killings as well. “Without passion, without haste, they slaughtered their prisoners. Each one has to go up to the hole and present his neck.” (Elie 4). Through long days and nights, he goes from one house to another, telling his story. Despite of his efforts, people were still insouciant and just made him a center of mockery. “He’s just trying to make us pity him. What an imagination he has! Poor fellow. He’s gone mad.” (Elie 5). The Jews themselves were indifferent. In Elie’s case, they all had been warned by Moshe, and also they’ve heard the news about the Germans as well; however, they decided to stay and ignore the premonition. They did not do anything for them, to try to get help for the people that were abused, neither themselves. People have responsibilities to do something in every need. Ever since, people were just not taking charge of what’s supposed to be
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 novel Night, written by Eli Wiesel, shares traumatic events that occurred during the Holocaust. Night contains several significant events in which dehumanization is taking place. Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazis gradually reduced the Jews to feel they are worthless and meaningless to life. Jews were treated so poorly to the point they no were no longer looked at as humans.
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.
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.