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Elie Wiesel Essays
Night elie wiesel essays
Literary review night elie wiesel
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Nakedness, beatings, dogs, tattooed numbers, fire, chimney, crematoria, loneliness, silence, death,... selection. These were all methods and statements made by the Germans in an effort to dehumanize the Jews. One of Elie Wiesel’s main focuses in the book Night is on dehumanization. Germans would put Jews in harsh situations to make them suffer, to the point of death.
In addition, through this memoir, Wiesel also provided us a true definition of what dehumanisation when Elie got separated from his family. Wiesel portrays the emotion that Elie was having when he and his father was separated from his mother "Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother." Through the expression that Wiesel describe Elie we can see how cruelty and dehumanisation were the Germans to the Jewish people. They were making all the Jewish separated to many sections in the camp "Men to the left, women to the right." Wiesel also provided us the information that anything can happen in the camp to the Jewish people.
Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, documented the horrible and gruesome experiences that the Jewish people fo that time went through. Himself and the rest of the Jews were dehumanized while living at the concentration camps run by the Nazis all across Germany. Attacked by the Nazis, the Jews were being formed into the lowest form of life on Earth. Their families taken from them, personal belongings either taken or destroyed, and finally their hopes and beliefs were demolished. The Jews were divided into categories based on their overall health.
During Elie’s time at the concentration camps, he experiences the many ways that the Nazis dehumanize the Jews. The Nazis causes unhamity between the Jews and turns them against each other. During one of the passages, Wiesel learns that one of his Kapo was taken out for being too humane to inmates. The Nazis put Jews in charge and give those Jews certain privileges in order to keep them in check. As a result, these Jews become more humane than the SS officers so that they may keep their position.
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, dehumanization is one of the key themes. Experiencing dehumanization is by far a horrible way to live. Being hit and treated like an animal is what Elie Wiesel, his father and the other Jews experienced. Even though this happened some time ago, it got me thinking how often does this happen today? Many people can still experience this, women especially.
The first dehumanizing act the Nazis perpetrate on the Jews is removing the normality from their everyday life. In Spring 1941, “German Army vehicles made their appearance” (Wiesel 9) on the streets of Sighet, yet the Jews showed no anguish. However, the harmony is short-lived; “the race toward death had begun” (Wiesel 10). The Nazis enforce rules that strip the Jews of their humanity: “jews were prohibited from
If you were to ask someone what the first number that comes to their head is when you say “Holocaust”, they would probably tell you 6 million, for the thousands of thousands of Jews killed. Maybe they say 11 million to include the 5 million people whose lives were also deemed worthless. Both of these are shocking numbers, but they don’t come about by accident. There is no butterfly effect or mishap that kills 11 million people, it is overwhelmingly intentional. The cornerstone strategy that allowed the Nazi party to carry out the largest genocide in human history was dehumanization.
Throughout the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel goes through a lot of changes as he and his father are put through torture in concentration camps. When Wiesel was fifteen he was separated from his mother and sisters when they were being grouped into camps. For about a year Wiesel, along with everyone else in the camps, is stripped of humane treatment. They are dehumanized to the point where they are treated like objects. Wiesel is dehumanized and is no longer treated as a human with feelings, but as an object that doesn't deserve a life.
One way the nazis dehumanize the Jewish People was that they didn’t recognize them as humans. “There are eighty of you in this car,” the German officer added. “If anyone goes missing, you all will be shot, like dogs”(Wiesel 21) The officers don't recognize them as human but more as “dogs” The officers are treating them like they are less than human which could make the Jewish People believe that they were actually less than human. The opposite of what the officers did would be to recognize that each of the Jewish people was actually human and that they were their own person.
Dehumanization is the process in which Nazis gradually and slowly degrade jews to little more than “things” because they don't see jews as humans. The Nazi’s felt this process was necessary due to the fact that jews were inferior to them. Jews were dehumanized at concentration camps constantly, many times the entering of the camps involved this. When Eli arrives at Auschwitz he is branded in a sorts. “I became A-7713.
Dehumanization is a major theme within the novel “Night”. Dehumanization means to make someone less human, to cross that thin line between human and animal. Elie and the other people in the novel all lose their sense of self due to the situation that they were forced into. To make the Jews lose their sense of self the Germans took away their rights, created fear, and starved them.
Imagine knowing your fate ahead of time. That single moment would be stuck in your head, replayed every second to prevent it. This would obstruct your feeling of morals, making you only focus on your own survival. Nothing would get in your way of trying to survive. During the Holocaust, many people were faced with this moment when they stepped in a concentration camp.
Imagine going through a breaking point in life. A point to where it is so awful and unbearable. Going through life complications will and can affect an individual. Oppression can affect how oppressed people think, including loss of hope, making changes in society, and having acceptance.
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.
Dehumanization Causing Events in Night Over the course of Eliezer’s holocaust experience in the novel Night, the Jews are gradually reduced to little more that “things” which were a nuisance to Nazis. This process was called dehumanization. Three examples of events that occurred which contributed to the dehumanization of Eliezer, his father, and his fellow Jews are: people were divided both mentally and physically, those who could not work or who showed weakness were killed, and public executions were held.