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Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

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Within Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, there are many important quotes. Although that is true, there is one that sticks out the most. On page 115 of the book, Wiesel states, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me” (Wiesel 115). This quote truly displays the theme of dehumanization portrayed by Wiesel. In the quote above, he is referring to the changes his body undergoes during World War II and they are unequivocally devastating. With every bone in his body almost visible through his skin, this account from Wiesel shows just some of the effects the war had on individuals. Wiesel was one of the millions of people who looked like this due to malnutrition after the war
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The central theme of Night by Elie Wiesel is the dehumanization and loss of faith in humanity during the Holocaust. The memoir illustrates the atrocities committed against Jews, including forced labor and executions in concentration camps. Eliezer and his father are subjected to severe physical torture, hunger, and disease throughout the course of the book while living under Nazi rule. As they struggled to survive, they witnessed unspeakable acts of violence against the other individuals in the camp which dehumanized and degraded them. Eliezer and other Night characters change as a result of these experiences, like losing faith in God and beginning to doubt the existence of humanity.

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His first day at the concentration camp, he receives his first extreme shock of death. “Behind me, an old man fell to the ground. Near him was an SS man, putting his revolver back in his holster.” (22) After this, Wiesel realizes how important life is. Not only his, but

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Throughout the memoir Night, written by Elie Wiesel, Elie depicts the systematic and brutal dehumanization of the Jewish people by the Nazis. The motif, of dehumanization, is carried out throughout the book in many scenes. Elie speaks of his memory of walking to the station “...where a convoy of cattle cars was waiting”(Wiesel 22).This is the first act of being dehumanized as they are deported to Auschwitz. From the moment they arrive at Auschwitz, the Jews are stripped of their individuality, forced to wear identical clothing, shave their heads, and given numbers instead of names. As Elie is tattooed with his numbers he has “no other name…(he) became A-7713”(Wiesel 42); this completely takes away his identity and his humanity.

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In the memoir “Night” by Elie Wiesel written in 1991. In this story the Jews are dehumanized in chapter 1, 2, and 3. The holocaust started around 1993. You may wonder why and what Hitlers goal was in planning this. On the website https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/ it states that his plan was to annihilate the Jews of europe.

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Wiesel also writes develops the theme of dehumanization in order to convey that the Nazi’s had consumed the feeling of humanity of the Jews. There were many acts that dehumanized the Jews which included starvation, beatings, murders, separation of families, theft of their belongings, and other things. Throughout the book, dehumanization grows and slowly exhausts the Jews until they have all sense of being human. After hearing about the bombing of the Buna factory, Wiesel writes, “We were not afraid. And yet, if a bomb had fallen on the blocks, it would have claimed hundreds of inmates’ lives.

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From 1941-1945 over 6 million Jews had died at the hands of the Nazis and Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was one of few who survived these horrors. He wrote about his experiences in his book Night. In this scene from Night by Elie Wiesel, he and dozens of others have been stuffed into cattle cars on trains, and people are throwing bread into the cars to watch the people in the cars fight for it. Wiesel explores dehumanization to demonstrate how changed people become because of the horrors that they had seen and experienced.

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Dehumanization can be defined as demonizing the enemy or making someone seem less than human and unworthy of humane treatment. However, in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, dehumanization has a more significant meaning. Throughout the memoir, the Nazis not only dehumanize the Jewish people but also take their identity, family, and values. They steal their clothes, shave their hair, remove their names, and force them to fight against each other like wolves for just a crust of bread merely for their amusement. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie is dehumanized by having his name taken away from him, and having his head shaved making him look the same as everyone around him, which causes Eliezer to question death, give up hope and give up faith in himself and others around him.

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78 years ago, an event that killed millions occurred, known as the Holocaust. It involved German Nazis torturing and mass murdering European Jews over the span of about 12 years. Although there are many stories and novels about the Holocaust, one stands apart from the others. The title of this book is “Night”, by Elie Wiesel. In this short novel, Wisiel tells the story of his life as a teen boy living in fear of the Nazis and his traumatizing experiences.

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An SS officer wandered through the room looking for the strongest men, Wiesel had found a note that the SS officer slipped to him which told them that Wiesel and the other men that were chosen were because of his strength, which he had been forced to place his own father’s body into the furnace. When Wiesel arrived at the barber they shaved every inch of their hair off until there was nothing left. Then, someone came over to Wiesel and threw his hands around him and told him how they were still alive and not to waste tears. “Not cry? We’re on the threshold of death.

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This quote truly sparks a realization of how traumatic the Holocaust was. We get to hear one of Wiesel’s experiences that can’t and will never leave his mind. He states “He was pale but seemed more solemn than a boy and stared at his extinguished eyes, the

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Parvathy Krishnan Mrs. Schields Honors English II, 1B 15 March 2023 Explain specific examples of events which dehumanized Elizer, his father, or his fellow Jews in his experiences while analyzing how each of these events changed Elie (mentally or physically). The Effects of Dehumanization In the face of atrocity, how can one restore their humanity? The Holocaust, occurring simultaneously with the Second World War, was the extermination and persecution of Jews in Europe by the Nazi regime. Night by Elie Wiesel portrays a firsthand account of the extremities at which the Nazis, and even supporting Germans, abused and mistreated the Jewish people.

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Dehumanization During The Holocaust What is dehumanization? Dehumanization is the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities. Dehumanization comes with cruelty and pain. Throughout history, we have seen different forms of dehumanization.

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1099 Words | 5 Pages

The Holocaust caused pain for Elie by watching everyone who lived among him disappear and die in front of his eyes. When Wiesel explains the corpse looking back at him through the mirror, he is referring to a man who had experienced such pain and could no longer be recognised. By enduring these tortures,

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The way he writes about these events captures his audience’s attention until the very end. Some of the examples are such as: they were given barely any rations, their possessions were taken from them as soon as they got to their destination(pg 21 & 27), they were herded like cattle into cattle cars, they had their families ripped apart due to gender(pg 27), they were forced to live in unsanitary living(if you can call it that) quarters, they were shaved clean on every part of their body like sheep(pg 33), and they were forced to do brutal and taxing jobs(pg 32-106). When Wiesel mentioned these events and treatments in this book, it quite literally reached into my soul and yanked it out in

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

The lack of resources provided during Wiesel's time in the death camps led to a change in demeanor, helping us as readers witness the horrors of the Holocaust. highlighting the brutality of the Holocaust while severing family ties. The need for self-preservation is the path to one's next food ration. Wiesel became "free at last" when he no longer had to share this one ration of food (112). As the flames of darkness would eventually extinguish, the pleas of the Jewish people went unanswered.

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