Examples Of Dehumanization During The Holocaust

Dehumanization during the Holocaust

According to a 2022 article published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Nazi racism resulted in the persecution and mass murder of six million Jews and millions of other people.” Before World War II, Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany where he sparked Nazism and started the Holocaust. The Holocaust was an attempt to rid the world of Jews, since Hitler was convinced they were an inferior and parasitic race. Not only were Jews killed by the Nazis, but they were also dehumanized. This dehumanization was done through things such as separating families, taking away belongings, inflicting poor hygiene and starvation, treatment like animals, and gas chambers. These racist attitudes and actions

As the Holocaust advanced through Europe, the Nazis began forcing Jews to leave their homes and move to ghettos, which later resulted in them getting sent to concentration camps. While this process occurred, the Jews were forced to sell all their belongings, before they were taken. The Jews had to leave behind everything they knew and loved, being stripped of their ability to have ownership over something or in other words, dehumanizing them. After spending a typically short amount of time in ghettos, Jews were transported to concentration camps. Upon arrival at camps such as Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Jews’ heads were shaved, their clothes were taken and replaced by uniforms or previously used clothing, along with any of their remaining belongings or personal items that remained. Corresponding to the information above, Holocaust survivor Broina Brandman, who was eleven when she was deported to Auschwitz, explained in the novel The Girl Who Survived that “They shaved off our hair and gave us a tin bowl, tattered clothes, and wooden clogs. The dress I received reached the floor, because there was no children’s clothing…Now we all looked alike. They had stolen our hair, our clothes, and even our names. We had lost our identities” (Brandman and Bierman 50-51). This displays that without anything of their own and with looking identical, dehumanization had occurred and the Jews no longer

Throughout the Holocaust as Jews were living in ghettos and concentration camps, many of them died from disease related to the poor hygiene or starvation that was imposed on them. One way poor hygiene was foisted on the Jews by forcing them to drink unclean water or no water at all. This unclean water caused many Jews to contract diseases in which they were treated as if they were disgusting and worthless. Not only were the Jews forced to drink unclean water, but they were also forced to eat rotten food out of rusted and unwashed bowls if they wanted to survive. However, this food was not always given to the Jews, resulting in severe hunger and starvation. Another aspect of poor hygiene was the sleeping conditions that Jews had. The beds that they were forced to sleep on were just wooden planks with hay on them. Unfortunately, the hay was infested with lice, causing it to spread to the remaining Jews with hair. Aside from poor sleeping conditions, Jews had limited places to use the bathroom and typically just shared a bucket, which was an issue when diarrhea had spread throughout concentration camps. In relation to hygiene, the Jews were not only denied showers along with clean clothes but were also “disinfected” with a foul-smelling liquid or oil as if they were parasites that needed to be exterminated. All of these racist actions have one key thing in