Dehumanization in Night Genocide has been a tragic feature of human history since the dawn of time, with the oppressor operating with the express purpose of killing their victims, in both body and spirit. The memoir Night, written by author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, details his harrowing experiences during World War II. At this time, the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, took control of Germany and its surrounding areas, eventually establishing concentration camps to carry out Hitler’s Final Solution: the systematic genocide of European Jews and any other minority deemed unfit for life in Nazi Germany. Those who were unfit for work in the camps (women, young children, the elderly, and the sick) were immediately killed upon arrival, usually via gas chambers. Those who were capable of physical labor were kept as prisoners, forced to work themselves to death. Elie Wiesel, originally taken to the …show more content…
For Elie specifically, the loss of his home in Sighet, his first day in Auschwitz, and the punishing route to Buchenwald were all dehumanizing experiences that vastly changed his views on himself and the world around him. To begin, losing his home in Sighet, along with everything he knew, caused Elie to perceive his own identity differently. Next, the horrors the first day of Auschwitz ushered in had caused Elie to see the world in a different, more negative light. Finally, the route to Buchenwald essentially stripped Elie of any hope to survive that he might have had left, even after everything he’d been through. Altogether, it’s hard to discuss painful topics like the Holocaust; it seems it would be easier to ignore them or dismiss the events as a thing of the past. As a society, we must never let ourselves forget our history, ugly or not, for history repeats itself, whether we acknowledge it or