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Examples Of Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

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In “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Elie writes about numerous examples of the atrocities and acts of dehumanization committed during the holocaust and also writes about some redeeming moments that helped him to keep pushing and survive. When the story first starts out, Elie and the rest of the jews in sighet are living their everyday lives until one day the Germans come to town. Over the next few weeks, the Germans slowly but surely took control of sighet and began enforcing very strict laws. Then, everyone is shipped off to concentration camps by train, and somehow Elie and his father stick together through several concentration camps and numerous atrocities but eventually Elie's father dies. During this whole story, Elie is called “filthy dog”, he …show more content…

An example of being reduced to subhuman creatures is when elie and fellow prisoners are made to run 20 km with no rest. During this, an SS soldier yells “faster, you flea-ridden dogs!(85)”. Them being called dogs is obviously extremely dehumanizing, and it is partly why the word “bitch” is offensive, as it refers to dogs. As I have said, moments of humanity have helped elie to keep going, however they still don't negate the dehumanization and offensiveness of being called dogs and being treated as less than …show more content…

On the train to Buchenwald, on the third night, Elie is awoken when someone tries to strangle him to death. Seeing this, Meir Katz shows compassion for his friend's son and a fellow Jew and saves his life. Despite being densely packed into cattle cars, nearly beaten to death and fighting over bread, Meir Katz still finds it in him to show humanity and save Elie. This moment probably helped remind Elie that even though most of the people around him are bad people, there are still good people out there and that there is a chance of survival. Without this hope, Elie would have either killed himself earlier or been

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In the memoir, Night by Elie Wiesel he recounts the horrors that occurred during the holocaust. The holocaust happened between the years 1933 and 1945. During that time, the jews were subjected to terrible, inhumane treatment. Hitler wanted to remove all jews from the death camps. He also killed most of jews by the end of 1945.

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The Dehumanization of Jews Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazis gradually reduced the Jews to little more than things. In Night By, Elie Wiesel, Eliezer, his father, and the other Jews were dehumanized over time to they became nothing to the SS officers. In the first part of Night Moshe the Beadle was thrown onto the first load of cattle cars and sent off. ( Night pg. 6) “They stopped the cattle car that Moshe was on, and the officers made the Jews dig a big trench and then the shot and killed them.

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Throughout the book Night by Elie Wiesel, we see many examples of how Jewish people were treated during their time in concentration camps. While reading this book we are met with many examples of the different hardships that Elie had gone through. Some of the hardships they endured were being beaten, tortured, starved, and in all dehumanized. Many examples are shown in the book written by Elie Wiesel. While reading Night we are met with many examples of the dehumanization that Elie was met with.

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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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] Memoir In the story “Night” written by Elie Wiesel, he tells his experience from when he was in the Holocaust in 1933-1945. Elie Weisel was only fifteen when he went through unthinkable pain. Elie explains the torture and suffering he went through while he was in the Holocaust. He was separated from his family and went through things no one should have to go through. Jews were dehumanized and treated like animals.

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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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“Meir Katz was moaning: Why don't they just shoot us now?” (Wiesel 103). This shows how the harsh conditions and punishment of the Nazi officers dehumanize the jewish prisoners in concentration camps. It is the process of dehumanization that made possible the evils of the Holocaust and makes possible the smaller evils that occur on a daily basis. The Nazi guards, as revealed in the Elie Wiesel memoir, Night, were able to victimize their prisoners because the process of dehumanization desensitized them to the evils they inflicted.

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In the autobiographical Holocaust novel, Night by Elie Wiesel, the motif of Jewish people being animals illustrates how genocide makes people resort to animalistic senses. When Soviet forces were approaching the concentration camp where Elie Wiesel was enslaved, Buna, the Nazis forced the Jews to walk for hours to another camp in Germany. While on the march Wiesel describes how “if one of us [Jews] stopped for just a second, a quick shot would eliminate the filthy dog”(Wiesel, 85). Wiesel is referring to his own community as a “filthy dog”, the connotations of this phrase imply submission and inferiority. The non-human connotations of this phrase demonstrate how torture and harrassment from the Nazis is making him see himself as less than

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Automatons are inhuman, and Elie compared them to Jewish prisoners, which proves the dehumanization even

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One of the main forms of dehumanization shown is starvation towards the Jews. In the book Elie says, “We were withered

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Elie had the choice to remain at the camp but thought it was best to evacuate believing that those who remained would be killed. This choice negatively impacted his life because of the hardships he and his father had to endure afterwards such as marching/running through the snow, the deaths of Elie's friends Zalman and Juliek, near-death misses, and in the future, the death of his father. It was negative because he and his father could have been saved if they stayed, due to the camp being liberated two days after they had left. This affected his identity and innocence by causing him to further lose his faith in humanity. This is because on the journey to Gliewitz, Elie was taking shelter in a shed until Rabbi Eliahu came in asking people if they had seen his son.

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Avoid the habit of staying silent, especially when discussing brutal events that shouldn't be repeated, such as dehumanization, which is the act of separating someone of all the characteristics that make them uniquely human, such as uniqueness, soul, and identity. In the eyes of the Nazis, the majority of Jewish prisoners in concentration camps were in an equal position. Some prisoners did survive in the camps but they completely lost themselves while trying to return home. We refer to the Jews who were detained in camps as prisoners, but the Nazi regime treated them no better than animals. In his autobiography Night, Elie Wiesel writes about the dehumanization of "imperfect" people, particularly Jews, who had their identities taken away from them and were either put to death (a practice known as the "Final Solution" developed by Adolf Hitler) or felt lost after their survival, but who were also treated like animals before being put to death.

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892 Words | 4 Pages

He showed the readers a personal view of the Nazi's treatment to the prisoners. The hell Elie went through in the camps is something that he will never forget. In contrast the dehumanization the jews received was very harsh it was something that changed their lives forever. They lost their possession, family,morality and their identity. Because of the strength Elie had through this horrible experience he has gained a stronger

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Throughout the novel, Elie is subjected to the harsh conditions of the concentration camps, including starvation, disease, and brutal treatment from the guards. He is forced to watch as his fellow prisoners suffer and die, and is left to question how humanity could be capable of such atrocities. In one passage, Elie describes the brutal conditions of the camp, saying, "We were nothing but numbers, mere numbers. We had ceased to be men" (Wiesel 25). This passage illustrates the dehumanizing nature of the concentration camps and the physical struggles that Elie and his fellow prisoners faced.

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In which millions of Jews were innocently killed and persecuted because of their religion. As a student who is familiar with the years of the holocaust that will forever live in infamy, Wiesel’s memoir has undoubtedly changed my perspective. Throughout the text, I have been emotionally touched by the topics of dehumanization, the young life of Elie Wiesel, and gained a better understanding of the Holocaust. With how dehumanization was portrayed through words, pondering my mind the most.

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