Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

Logan Norris

Mrs. Way

Honors English 9

22 March 2023

Dehumanization in Night The holocaust, a dark time for the Jewish population of Europe. Many Jews were ruthlessly slaughtered by the hands of Adolf Hitler and his army. However, some were lucky enough to survive this genocidal act by the Nazis. One of these people would go on to win the Nobel peace prize for writing the famed novel, Night. Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor retells his account of the holocaust from his arrival in Auschwitz, to his liberation in Buchenwald, as he navigates those traumatic events shown in the book. The novel shows how Hitler’s army uses dehumanization tactics as a tool to keep the Jewish prisoners in line. One example that exists in Night of hitler’s

Towards the end of Elie’s first full day in the Buna work camp, every prisoner in his block is tattooed. When this happens, Elie narrates, “The three ‘veteran’ prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name” (Wiesel 42). This is significant because the tattooing of the prisoners for identification takes away the use of their names, leading to the prisoners losing a large part of their identity that their name provides. This ties back to dehumanization because humans give things they deem important or significant names. The act of taking away the Jew’s names means the Nazis do not view them as significant, further dehumanizing the Jewish prisoners. Similarly, early in Elie’s second day in Auschwitz Birkenau, at five o’clock in the morning, the prisoners were told to leave the barrack and to strip naked to receive their prison uniforms. During this Elie again, narrates, “Another barrack: the storeroom. Very long tables. Mountains of prison garb. As we ran through, they threw clothes at us, pants, jackets, shirts… In a few seconds, we had ceased to be men” (Wiesel 36-37). This is relevant because the removal of the prisoner’s clothes takes away their freedom to dress and express themselves how they want, taking away their identity. This relates to dehumanization because making every prisoner wear a prison uniform makes them look the same as everyone else around them, almost like livestock in a pen. All in all the Nazis' act of taking away the Jew’s identities is an extremely large part of Hilter’s plan to dehumanize the Jewish