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Dehumanization During The Holocaust

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Based on Night, during the Holocaust, the Nazis gradually reduced the Jews to little more than “things” which were a nuisance to them. To deprive one of human qualities, personality, and/or spirit is to dehumanize one. In which, there were way more than a handful of examples to support this statement. Examples where men were deprived of food (human qualities), forced to go against their religion (personality), and wretchedly beat (spirit).
Three of the basic human needs include food, water, and shelter. It would be outright dehumanizing to take away these needs from any human being. However, there are several instances from Night where the Nazis did just that. The first to be mentioned as stated by Eliezer, “I was hungry and thirsty. I must have been very dirty and disheveled, to judge by what the others looked like… And who knew when we would be given another ration?” (95). This quote is one piece of evidence to show Eliezer himself was deprived of food, his own basic need. Another example of this cruel act of dehumanization was when the SS guards threw bread at the uncounted Jews who were crammed into one cart of the train (101). There were way too many starving men for the amount of bread they tossed inside that a man literally killed his father for a piece. It …show more content…

As a Jew, there are strict laws that most of them, if not all, follow habitually. To strip them of their valuables and to force them to go against their religion is equivalent to stripping them of their rights. On page 42, Eliezer states, “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.” First and foremost, it is against Jewish religion to have permanent markings on the body and this was something the Nazis forced upon them. Second, calling someone by a single letter and a four digit number is awfully demeaning. Enough to take away an individual 's

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We use them whenever we please, however we please, as much as we please. The SS officers treated Wiesel and the other Jews the same way. They were ordered around until they were nearly dead, then gave them a bit of

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The SS officers tattoo each prisoner so they know how many people there are, and die. The Jews are labeled as cattle. The farmers put tags on their animals to manage them in groups and to keep records of them. The SS officers look at the Jews as animals. They are doing things similar to farmers, and the officers are making sure that they know they are being looked after like animals.

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As several Jews jumped off the wagon an SS officer said, “Men to the left! Women to the right!” (Wiesel 29). In this instance, they treat the Jews as if they were not human, but a herd of animals, giving countless commands to separate them from their loving family. Elie and his father were forced against their own will to seperate from their own family, even if they did not want to.

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Prisioners are robbed of their identity by being tattooed with numbers that correspond to their names. The SS Officers had lost the respect of all their morals. When the Germans rescued the Jews from Buchenwald, the Jews are hospitalized for the

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Throughout all the terror and dehumanization the Jews faced, their real human relationships with others were what kept them truly living. While the Nazis attempted to turn the Jewish people against each other and diminish them to animals, the basic human relationships formed between prisoners, and their continual acts of kindness were the true act of Nazi rebellion and what kept them sane. While “Help was often of a minimal and/or symbolic nature… ability to retain part of his personality and self-respect, and this is given considerable importance in relation to the capacity for survival” (Davidson). The dignity that the Jewish prisoners fought to maintain came from their inclusion and importance in their social group. Therefore, while they attempted to, the Nazis could not steal their dignity.

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From then on, I had no other name.” (Wiesel 42). This quotation explains the intended impact the SS men desired for the Jewish prisoners to believe. The artificial belief the SS men implanted into the minds of all their prisoners is that they are insignificant and unworthy of a name. This deteriorates an individual's emotional well being and will to live which leads to an unjustified faith.

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One of Wiesel 's strengths in Night is to show the full face of dehumanization. It is something that the Nazis perpetrated against the people they imprisoned. The tattooing of numbers on the prisoners, something that Eleizer notes, is of extreme importance. A- 7713 is by definition an example of dehumanization because it robs the humanity of the individual. The abuses that the Nazis perpetrate on their prisoners is another example of dehumanization.

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When they 're being separated the Jews were packed into train cars with little food and water. They had no bathroom so that use the corners to do their business. “ forbidden to go outside, people relieve themselves in a corner. ”(Wiesel 22) the Jews lost their “names”, they were given new names that were tattoo to them. “ the three veteran prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms.

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Dehumanization of the Jews During the Holocaust, dehumanization of the Jews took place. The Natzis would do several things to try and make the Jews feel like animals and nothing more. They wanted to show that the Jews were a race that should have not existed. They would go to any means to complete their objective of an Aryan race.

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Dehumanization is the process in which a person is deprived of their human qualities. The Nazis often used this practice on the Jews and other victims of the Holocaust as these people were stripped of their humanity, and many examples of this can be found in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel. “Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed.

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Dehumanization is the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities, according to the dictionary. Throughout Night it shows a lot of dehumanization examples. It would take hours to name all of them. Some of the ways dehumanization was showed in Night was all of the abuse, having no identity except for a number, and the hunger they felt because they would only get one meal per day.

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In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, courage is demonstrated throughout the novel by various characters. To begin, courage was shown when Elie’s father was too weak to continue working and was selected to be killed, so Elie ran after his father, determined not to lose him. Courageously he chased after his father, “... Several SS men rushed to find me, creating such a confusion that a number of people were able to switch over to the right-among them my father and I. Still, there were gunshots and some dead” (Wiesel 96).

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(Wiesel 112). Eliezer is sad when his father dies, but is more relieved because he can take care of himself now. Another way Eliezer is dehumanized mentally is through his religion. Before he was sent to the concentration camps, Eliezer believed God always knew best. But as the memoir goes on, Eliezer loses his faith.

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