The Haunting of Deprivation
Have you ever had something that you cared about stripped from your possession? It does not even have to be a physical object that was confiscated. Think of how you felt. The suffering Jews in the Holocaust experienced the same feeling you have, but more severe. In the story Night, by Elie Wiesel, he recounts his experience of surviving through the horrific Holocaust. Throughout the entire story, one can perceive many objects as being symbolic. Three in particular are the yellow star that the jews were forced to wear, the captured Jews’ empty homes, and the German officer’s baton.Taking a closer look at the symbols in Night, one can see that the yellow star stands for segregation, the empty homes stand for deprivation, and the officer's baton stands for the social hierarchy.
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When I hear the word segregation I immediately think of the 1960’s when whites were segregating the African Americans. Yes that was segregtaion, but what the Nazi’s were doing to the Jews was also a very harsh form of segregation. The yellow star was bestowed to every Jew. It was the Germans’ way to show their power and control over the Jews. Elie Wiesel unfortunately had to wear it as well. “Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yellow star”(Wiesel 11). The Germans used this particular symbol to segregate all the Jews and show that they are in control. Every person holds true to their own personality and beliefs, but once the Germans assigned a star to each Jew, they were all considered to be the same. The yellow star also symbolizes all of the labels and restrictions that that the Nazi’s established. The star was a clear marker of segregation and it emphasized the fact that the Jews had no rights to anything
By wearing the yellow star the Nazi are taking away
People have more power than others, which can lead to people suffering for insufficient reasons. In Elie’s book Night Chapter 1, the Germans begin to deport the Jews in groups from their homes (Elie 1. 18-22). With the Germans starting to show their power towards the Jews, they begin to take away their possessions
When reading Night you think of it as a non-fiction biography of Elie Wiesel illustrating the events that conspired at Auschwitz. The book Night, to me, is more of a human documentary that showed how cruel mankind could possibly be. It's even notable in the book that most things that happened there were only out of the cruel nests and hatred of man towards man. The Jewish people were no more than victims to Germany's problems, and forced to take the blame. It's all just one big statement of man vs man and that's what it's always been.
Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it....'". Here he is referencing the yellow star the jews were forced to wear so they could be easily identified by the germans that had invaded. This violates 7th article of the UDHR. This states that all are equal before the law and are entitled without discrimination to protection of the law.
Facing difficulties in literature gives connection and better understanding to readers. In writing, difficulties also provide more details to the literature. This novel describes especially hard times because was written during the time period of the Holocaust. In the drama Night by Elie Wiesel, difficulties are shown through events that take place during the Holocaust and resemble frightening situations. In Night, Elie Wiesel was faced with the difficulty of taking a cattle train, with many others, to a concentration camp called Auschwitz.
In his book, “Night”, Elie Wiesel gives us just a glimpse into the horrors of the Holocaust. Throughout the book, Elie faces several cruel and inhumane challenges while he is in the concentration camps. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in December 1948, ensured that this atrocity would never happen again. However, during the Holocaust, many of these rights were violated, and the violation of these rights will haunt our world forever. Article 5 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that no one will be subjected to torture or cruel punishment.
Night Response Throughout the story Night I have learned so much about the three types of dehumanization. The three types of dehumanization are mental, physical, and emotional. They all affect humans in some sort of way and I got the experience of the reading this book by Elie Wiesel and learning about them.
“Yes, you can lose somebody overnight, yes, your whole life can be turned upside down. Life is short. It can come and go like a feather in the wind. ”- Shania Twain.
In that moment the Jews became slaves and they lost their identity. They wear yellow stars and they are forbidden to posses of anything and lost their freedom
“‘I have terrible news,’ he said at last. ‘Deportation.’ The ghetto was to be completely wiped out. We were to leave street by street the following day” (Wiesel 11). Throughout the vast novel, Night,by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist Elie had gone through agonizing experiences, for the duration of the gruesome and unspeakable genocide.
The memoir written by Elie Wiesel, Night, is illustrating the Holocaust, the even which caused the death of over 6 million Jews. Auschwitz, the concentration camps, is responsible for over 1 million of the deaths. In the memoir Night, Wiesel uses the symbolism of fire, and silence to clearly communicate to the readers that the Holocaust was a catastrophic and calamitous event, and that children should never be involved in warfare. Elie Wiesel enters Auschwitz at the age of 15, and witnesses’ horrific events as a prisoner in Auschwitz, including the deaths of numerous children, and the beating and death of his own father. All these inhumane things were done just because Adolf Hitler wanted to cleanse the German society of the Jews.
The human condition is a very malleable idea that is constantly changing due to the current state of mankind. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the concept of the human condition is displayed in the worst sense of the concept, during the Holocaust of WWII. During this time, multiple groups of people, most notably European Jews, were persecuted against and sent to horrible hard labor and killing centers such as Auschwitz. In this memoir, Wiesel uses complex figurative language such as similes and metaphors to display the theme that a person’s state as a human, both at a physical and emotional level, can be altered to extreme lengths, and even taken away from them, under the most extreme conditions.
Wiesel states, "Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear a yellow star"(Wiesel 11). Based on Wiesel's statement, all Jews are dehumanized as they are all forced to wear a yellow star, imposing discrimination between Jewish people and people of differing religions. Wiesel also states, "'From this moment on, you are under the authority of the German Army'"(24). This statement identifies that those who once belonged to Transylvania and other places are now subject to follow orders of the German Army, whom these Jews are uncomfortable with. The statement provides violation of human rights based on limitation of sovereignty.
The Nazis were determined to have their identity be stripped away from them, starting with the choice of clothes being worn, forced to wear prison uniforms. Next they were forced to shaved their heads and every hair on their body, losing the choice of appearance. Finally the Nazis gave each person a tattoo of a number
One can hear the sound of the German soldiers while attacking the Jews. They enjoy killing them and this may be considered a symbol of