Dehumanization In Night And Maus By Art Spiegelman

“It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.”~ Elie Wiesel. In night by Elie Wiesel and the graphic novel maus by Art Spiegelman the recurring theme of dehumanization takes places as they fight their way through the concentration camps. Elie sees and experiences dehumanization like when he was stripped of his name and numbered as A-7713 and the public hangings shows dehumanization. In Maus spiegelman shows dehumanization when he shows how the races were viewed during the holocaust. The jewish people portrayed as mice because they were weak and vulnerables and the polish were represented as pigs because the commanders were considered greedy and lazy bums. We have learned throughout Night and Maus dehumanization made the victims of the holocaust less than human, which is no way anyone should be treated.

Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments. We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table. 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.” Elie and the other prisoners were robbed of their identity and branded like cattle. Due to the tattoo that was pierced into their skin, their identity was taken from them and they were no longer considered human. Because of this act of torture the Jewish people were considered anything less than a person or even human which is the dehumanization the nazis were doing. Another method of dehumanization that the nazis used is the public hangings of a young child in front of the whole camp. It dehumanizes the boy who is known by as pipel by hanging them and leaving him as a show. It symbolizes dehumanization because it portrays pipel as an object rather than a human