During the Holocaust, there were many examples of people’s inhumanity to others such as the starting of the deportations, how they survived, and what the camps were like.
According to McElroy, the starting of deportations is an example of inhumanity when it says that the Jews would refuse to go to these camps, so they had to go into hiding. They mostly hid underneath buildings, in secret passageways, or in bunkers under the ground. The people who hid in these places had to manage food, money, and being quiet during the day (McElroy 119). This proves that inhumanity has happened by the Germans making them go into hiding because they didn’t want to go to the camps. It also proves that inhumanity is happening when they had to hide underneath
The changed laws were absolutely horrible. Men had to take their hats off whenever german soldiers passed (“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”). They are making them take their hats off to disrespectful people and that is inhumane. In the camps, every little piece of food is very important to everyone. Such as getting a piece of sausage, they would eat it very slowly so they got every taste of it. If anyone could get an extra bowl of oatmeal, then they were to get it (“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”). The police have been starving them so much that the Jewish people had to eat very slowly and that definitely describes inhumanity because everyone needs food to survive. “ Racism, including racial antisemitism (prejudice against or hatred of Jews based on false biological theories), was always an integral part of German National Socialism (Nazism).” (“Racism: An Overview”). Judging Jews by how their face shape is completely insane and inhumane. Also judging them by their past is very harsh. “Nazi racists viewed the mentally and physically ill as blemishes upon the genetic landscape of the so-called master race and, when they reproduced, as a biological danger to the purity of the Aryan race.” (“Racism: An Overview”). Everyone’s face shape is different so it would be inhumane by judging them for their face. The Nazi’s thought that mentally disabled people were a danger to the human race and it the entire story remains focused on the central characters, in a specific location, and a fixed time period.” (“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”). Concentration camps are the camps where Jews were tortured. Only 10 percent of them were taken to these camps where they would be forced to work until death (McElroy 218). Would not one think that was inhumane? Working until death is also very inhumane because nobody has to make you work until you die. Someone torturing you is strongly inhumane with the fact that the Jews did not do anything wrong. The Nazis built lots of camps which were designed for murder. This required moving millions of Jews by train to the death camps. The people inside the box were quickly forced to make two single file lines. Then the policemen picked who would go to the camps and who would be killed immediately (McElroy 218). Inhumanity is happening here because people are not supposed to be sorted out like a bunch of cows. They are also not to make people squished in the train boxes. “Here men, we live by the law of taiga. But even here people manage to live.” “...do as much for the guards as you need, no more; always share your parcels with the right people - like your squad leader; watch out for your tools, hide them; obey- do not fight the authorities; don't hurry.” (“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”). People are getting so crazy that they have to
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel there were countless acts that would be classified as inhuman. For example the hanging of an angelic pipel, or killing one’s father for a piece of bread. Although both acts are extremely inhuman, hanging a child is more inhuman than killing one’s father for a piece of bread. Yet, to kill someone’s father for a bread is more in keeping with human nature in the fact that it is done for survival.
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.
There are unexpected aspects of life in the camp depicted in “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlement” by Tadeusz Borowski. The prisoners were able to make very obvious improvements to their lived in the camp, without reaction by the SS officers; the market was even made with the support of the camp. The prisoners actually hoped for a transport of prisoners, so as to gain some supplies. The true nature of the camp is never forgotten, even in better moments at the camp.
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.
In looking back upon his experience in Auschwitz, Primo Levi wrote in 1988: ?It is naïve, absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal system such as National Socialism (Nazism) sanctifies its victims. On the contrary, it degrades them, it makes them resemble itself.? (Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 40). The victims of National Socialism in Levi?s book are clearly the Jewish Haftlings. Survival in Auschwitz, a book written by Levi after he was liberated from the camp, clearly makes a case that the majority of the Jews in the lager were stripped of their human dignity. The Jewish prisoners not only went through a physical hell, but they were psychologically driven under as well. Levi writes, ??the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts? We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death?? (Levi, 41). One would be hard pressed to find passages in Survival in Auschwitz that portray victims of the camp as being martyrs. The treatment of the Jews in the book explicitly spells out the dehumanization to which they were subjected. It is important to look at how the Jews were degraded in the camp, and then examine whether or not they came to embody National Socialism after this.
Everyone is different and that is what makes the world a wonderful place, at least one would think. But 1944 and 1945 German folks called Nazis discriminated against anyone that was different from them. Nazi soldiers made people feel less o f a person, all because they believed in different faiths. In the story The Night written by Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor he tells of the dehumanizing ways of the Nazi soldiers and how they made Jews feel less of a person day by day. Jewish people were at the very top for being different; they were hated by the Nazis. It was believed that everything bad that ever happened were the Jews fault. They went through unfair treatment just because of their religion.
The train rides to Auschwitz were an introduction to the treatment that the deportees were to receive at the ca...
Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and his sudden control over Germany sparked a new age of reform within the new “Nazi-state” (Hunt 848). As Nazism became a major aspect of everyday life in Germany, Hitler plotted against his enemies and those he blamed for Germany’s defeat in World War I: the Jewish race. In his biography, Mein Kampf, Hitler discusses the artistic, social, and technological superiority of Germany (“Aryans”), why he believes the Aryans are the ultimate dominant human race, and he makes many anti-Semitic remarks against the Jews. (Lualdi 224). In 1935, the “Nuremberg Laws” were enacted to deny Jewish Germans of their citizenship; this ultimately led Hitler to carry out his “Final Solution,” in which he hoped to fully exterminate the Jewish race from all of Europe (Hunt 864). After gathering the Jews from their “ghettos” and forcing them into concentration camps all across Europe, Hitler and his Nazi advocates began one of the most destructive and horrifying genocides in history, known today as the Holocaust. Only after being introduced to the conditions of these concentration camps, the hatred and abuse put towards the Jewish, and the gruesome lifestyle they were trapped into living can one understand why the Holocaust affected so many as it did. What exactly were the conditions of these camps, and how did a few lucky survivors prevail while their friends and families perished?
Many people have a dark side where they are forceful and abusive. Frank Norris presents “brute within” in the novel, McTeague. The brute within would be described as a dark side to a person that normally wouldn't show but after being taunted long enough, it would make you commit to choices one in its right mind wouldn't normally make. The novel is about an abusive dentist, who hastily marries what he's yet to know a greedy woman. McTeague falls in love with Trina when she takes a trip to his dentist parlor and has work done on her teeth. Soon enough Trina Falls for McTeague and Trinas Greed for money catches up and pulls the inner abusive side of make Teague to come out. Frank Norris projects these elements to show that all humans inherently have a brute within.
Eighteen million Europeans went through the Nazi concentration camps. Eleven million of them died, almost half of them at Auschwitz alone.1 Concentration camps are a revolting and embarrassing part of the world’s history. There is no doubt that concentration camps are a dark and depressing topic. Despite this, it is a subject that needs to be brought out into the open. The world needs to be educated on the tragedies of the concentration camps to prevent the reoccurrence of the Holocaust. Hitler’s camps imprisoned, tortured, and killed millions of Jews for over five years. Life in the Nazi concentration camps was full of terror and death for its individual prisoners as well as the entire Jewish society.
So do you consider yourself a human or an animal? How can someone show inhumanity towards other? When we are at the verge of death or have not ate anything for weeks, our nature tells us to do everything we can to survive even if it means fighting to the death over food. Some people were put into a situation of every man for himself and their animal nature comes out wanting everything for themselves and doing what they have to in order to survive. If we kill each other for food or survival, then we are no longer human but rather animals. We can see this in Night by Elie Wiesel, historical and current events, and everyday observation and/or experience.
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.
The number of gays and lesbians in the U.S. is estimated to be approximately 8.8 million (randomhistory.com) About thirty-three percent of Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender commit suicide each year. At least fifty-two percent self-harm (dosomethinng.com). Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender are mistreated and misunderstood. Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender are treated inhumanely which causes them to go into a deep depression, self-harm, or even commit suicide. LGBT are humans, not just some creature from another world (personal).
The treatment of Jews and other minority groups by the Nazi’s can be described as actions that could only be done by a totalitarian state. Hitler believed in eugenics, the idea of improving a race by selective breeding. Nazi ideology of the Jewish race was severe anti-Semitism and pure hatred. The Nazi policy towards the Jews has been said to be the most brutal and horrific example of anti-Semitism in history.
Ghettos start to take shape throughout German captive territories. Mass killings are perfectly and vividly described in the letters and communications within the Third Reich through communication and the war diaries of men like Lt. Col. Helmuth Groscurth about the massacres of polish citizens in October of 1939; “The woman had to climb into this grave and took her youngest child in her arms…” A culture of inhumanity was being created as certain groups were being targeted and annihilated from institutions for the handicapped and mentally disabled by the spring of 1940. Based on the calculations offered by the Germans the average daily cost for an institutionalized person in 1940 was RM 0.56. The Germans presented the information to the Aryan population as a positive money saving endeavor and affirmative reasoning to justify and execute the handicapped or disabled population institutionalized as wards of the state.