Dehumanization In Elie Wiesel's Night

In the memoir Night, the Jews were dehumanized by the Nazis until they had so very little left, whether it was their dignity, friends and family, or will to live. The moment the Jews entered the concentration camps, they were subject to dehumanization. The Nazis abused them and threw their babies into furnaces. Families were separated, and everyone was beaten. They were given a single tiny rations of food that could hardly count as a serving. And on top of that, they were forced to do unbelievable tasks while they were starving and severely beaten. Dehumanization is very clearly shown in the story of Night, through the tortuous and unrelenting abuse that the Jews experienced from the hands of the Nazis.

Near the beginning of the book, when

Throughout the whole story, Elie gives a look into the abuse that he and others would suffer. They would be randomly woken up and beaten and forced to run around in the cold. Or the guards would be unhappy with something that one of the Jews did, and would attack them. It was a constant feeling of fear caused by the possibility of being assaulted. The Nazis forced a mindset of fear onto the Jews. They made the Jews think that there was nothing they could do, and that they had complete control over them. Something similar occurred in Animal Farm, as Napoleon and the other pigs manipulated the other animals to believe that Snowball was evil and tried to sabotage them, and convinced the animals to accept and respect them as their leaders. The pigs, through propaganda and other forms of subtle manipulation, were able to make the rest of the animals submit to their commands. In Night, a similar situation occurred, except the Nazis demanded the attention and respect from the Jews through force and fear. “I had watched it all happening without moving. I kept silent. In fact, I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What's more, if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath? That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me…” (Wiesel 54). This quote from the book summarizes the fear

Even though they were allowed to wear as many clothes as they wanted, as it was extremely frigid, the Jews were forced to run. If someone stopped for a second, they would be shot. They ran for a very long time in the cold weather, without water or food, and completely out of breath. Then the Jews arrived at a small village. They went inside the buildings to rest, where many of them laid on the ground until they died from the temperature, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, or something similar. Elie and his father attempted to keep each other awake to avoid the grip of death. As night fell, the SS ordered the Jews to get back into their ranks. They marched in the freezing cold while snow fell from the sky. After a while of marching and running, they arrived at Gleiwitz. The Jews were crammed into the barracks, with very little room for air. Everyone was squished and smothering each other. People died under the weight of a pile of other Jews. They stayed like that for three days without food or water, and were forbidden to leave the barracks. After they were let out and given a small ration of bread, they were shoved into roofless train cars. They stop after a while of traveling to throw out the dead, and Elie almost loses his father, who was almost dead. They continued moving, having snow as their only food. After days of traveling, the Nazis threw bread into the cart, and the emaciated Jews clawed