The Nazis dehumanize the Jews in horrifying and inhuman ways. Throughout Night, author Elie Wiesel demonstrates how the Jews and other prisoners are mistreated mentally, emotionally, and physically by depicting 15 year old Eliezer’s experiences during the Holocaust. All through Night, the Jews and other prisoners are mentally, emotionally, and physically dehumanized. Families are separated, they are ordered to run in the death marches, obliged to view and fully examine killed/hung prisoners, and watch family members, neighbors, friends, etc. die/get beat without being able to do anything (if something was done, the person would get the same beating or would be killed). In Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Gale gets whipped in front of the whole district and when Katniss goes up to stop the whipping, she gets whipped near her face as a consequence. In addition to the harmful acts forced upon the Jews, the Nazis force them to wear the yellow star and move the victims to ghettos. In the book, Wiesel mentions how a workman throws a piece of bread to the wagon and an older man …show more content…
The Nazis and other officers’ behaviors toward the Jews cause a situation where a son beat his own father to death merely for bread; this is an example of emotional dehumanization. Emotional dehumanization is the worst kind of dehumanization because it makes one question, and possibly not even consider, his (former) appreciation for a loved-one. Emotional dehumanization definitely takes the biggest toll on Eliezer; he
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.
Young children are not born with the ability to understand the complexity and absolute truth of justice. Elie Weisel tells his own story, starting at age twelve, of his treatment and survival in the Nazi Germany Concentration Camps in his novel, Night. Living in Sighet, Transylvania (modern day Romania) suddenly halted for Elie and his family when they were deported and taken to the Nazi Germany Concentration Camps during World War II. There, Elie was faced with a daily struggle to survive, separated from his mother and sisters, living only for his father. During his time in the Nazi Germany Concentration Camps, Elie Weisel discovered the true meaning of justice while suffering loathsome treatment and absolute injustice at the hands of Nazi soldiers, shown through the soldiers’ violence and disregard for humanity.
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
Throughout the Holocaust, the Jews were continuously dehumanized by the Nazis. However, these actions may not have only impacted the Jews, but they may have had the unintended effect of dehumanizing the Nazis as well. What does this say about humanity? Elie Wiesel and Art Spiegelman both acknowledge this commentary in their books, Night and Maus. The authors demonstrate that true dehumanization reveals that the nature of humanity is not quite as structured as one might think.
“He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible , only dehumanized.” The book “ Night” by Ellie Wiesel was published on 1956 , it is about his dad and him getting taken to concentration camps by Nazis. “ The process of dehumanization is an aspect of our society that destroyed lives during the holocaust and continues to do so.”
“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness ” (Elie Wiesel). “Night” was published by an arrangement with Hill and Wang in 1960 the memoir was by Elie Wiesel, There are three quotes from the novel that are significant and poignant.
Dehumanization is the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities. These SS men were so cruel and burnt babies alive. These families believed in God, but do they now after everything that has happened? You should never lose faith in the father because he knows what is going on and he is testing your faith. Three things of dehumanization are that their belongings were taken away if it was valuable, they starved for days, and they traveled place to place by cattle cars.
"Night" by Elie Wiesel is a memoir about Wiesel and his experiences during the holocaust. The novel documents the dehumanization of Wiesel, his father, and fellow jews. Dehumanization is the process by which one is deprived of human necessities and qualities. Consequently one reverts back to animalistic behaviors in a means of survival. Throughout the novel, Wiesel and fellow jew were deprived of food, water, clothing, and address. This results in said people losing their identity, going to extremes for a scrap of food and losing regard for the lives of others. These are all examples of animalistic behaviors demonstrated throughout the novel.
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.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
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.
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. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish
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.
Guilt is an extremely powerful emotion that can consume one from the inside out. In the novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, everybody, including the Jews act out against each other and do not stand up for one another. In this story, Jews are forced from their homes and brought to concentration camps with rough conditions. Elie’s persecution occurred in the following concentration camps: Auschwitz, Buna, Gleiwitz, and Buchenwald. The Jews took on an overwhelming amount of hardships, but the most difficult obstacle to conquer was man's lack of humanity to man. Throughout the book, the inhumanity against man develops from widespread prejudice to terribly personal punishments.
In the book Night, Wiesel shares his experiences with his father in concentration camps during World War II. The story shows dehumanization in a great number of ways. For example, a German officer told the Jews, “‘There are eighty of you in this wagon,’ added the German officer. ‘If anyone is missing, you’ll all be shot, like dogs….’” (Wiesel 22). In the wagons, the Jews were forced to sit with no space to move. The quote also shows that German officers had no respect for Jews. The phrase "you'll all be shot, like dogs" compares them to animals, showing them thought to be incapable of human qualities.