From the small town of Sighet in Transylvania to the huge concentration camps of Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel, the author and victim of the book Night, the horrifying experience of the Holocaust. Wiesel is a 15 year old Jewish boy who was captured by the Germans or “Nazis” during WWII. He went through an overwhelming amount of trauma, like when he got separated from his mother and sisters and watching his father suffer an unbearable amount of pain that eventually killed him. The fact is, power is a tool that can corrupt itself and others, it can ruin people’s lives and it can do that without people even realizing it.
In Night. People in concentration camps tried to protect each other but struggled very hard to do so. Sometimes, they barely had a chance to begin with. For example, Elie witnessed someone kill himself because they already committed all he had left to taking care of a family member and was stuck. “A terrible thought crossed my mind: What if he had wanted to be rid of his father?
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer Wiesel narrates the legendary tale of what happened to him and his father during the Holocaust. In the introduction, Wiesel talks about how his village in Seghet was never worried about the war until it was too late. Wiesel’s village received advanced notice of the Germans, but the whole village ignored it. Throughout the entire account, Wiesel has many traits that are key to his survival in the concertation camps.
The memoir written by Elie Wiesel, Night, is illustrating the Holocaust, the even which caused the death of over 6 million Jews. Auschwitz, the concentration camps, is responsible for over 1 million of the deaths. In the memoir Night, Wiesel uses the symbolism of fire, and silence to clearly communicate to the readers that the Holocaust was a catastrophic and calamitous event, and that children should never be involved in warfare. Elie Wiesel enters Auschwitz at the age of 15, and witnesses’ horrific events as a prisoner in Auschwitz, including the deaths of numerous children, and the beating and death of his own father. All these inhumane things were done just because Adolf Hitler wanted to cleanse the German society of the Jews.
The first is a rebellious teenager who stole soup during the air raid. He tells the Kapo that he does not want to be blindfolded, “The Kapo wanted to blindfold the youth, but he refused,” (pg.62). And before he is hanged, “... the latter shouted, in a strong and calm voice: ‘Long live liberty! My curse on Germany!... ‘“ Although inhumanity is shown in forcing all the prisoners to look at the youth, the Jews are filled with a new sort of hope.
“I realized that he did not want to see what they were going to do to me. He did not want to see the burning of his only son”(42). When Eliezer arrives at Auschwitz, the separation of his family puts an emotional toll on his father since he realizes that only him and Eliezer are still alive. This will be a catalyst to their relationship becoming stronger as they endure more together. Elie Wiesel, the author of the novel Night writes his own personal accounts of experiencing the Holocaust through the character Eliezer.
The severely cruel conditions of concentration camps had a profound impact on everyone who had the misfortune of experiencing them. For Elie Wiesel, the author of Night and a survivor of Auschwitz, one aspect of himself that was greatly impacted was his view of humanity. During his time before, during, and after the holocaust, Elie changed from being a boy with a relatively average outlook on mankind, to a shadow of a man with no faith in the goodness of society, before regaining confidence in humanity once again later in his life. For the first 13 years of his life, Elie seemed to have a normal outlook on humanity.
Throughout Night, dehumanization consistently took place as the tyrant Nazis oppressed the Jewish citizens. The Nazis targeted the Jews' humanity, and slowly dissolved their feeling of being human. The feeling of dehumanization was very common between the jews. They were constantly being treated as in they were animals. The author and narrator Elie Wiesel, personally experienced being treated like an animal
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.
It is a common assumption among numerous people in the world that the Holocaust never existed. In fact, almost fifty percent of the world population never even heard of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel helped people around the world learn about the Holocaust through his book “Night.” He wanted people to see the bravery, courage, and guilt of the Jews through his book. “Night” shows the horrific and malicious acts in the German concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Elie’s identity has been reshaped by the sensation of feeling meaningless because his name is accustomed around his personality which defines one’s identity. Thus without a name, Eliezer has no individual personality or identity. Auschwitz is eminent for their impeccable lifestyle and cold-blooded soldiers. The barbarous SS men are domineering towards the Jewish captives throughout their eerie threats and actions, as demonstrated in the following quotation, “From time to time, a shot exploded in the darkness. They had orders to shoot anyone who could not sustain the pace.
In this memoir, Elie Wiesel uses imagery in order to develop the presence of animal-like behavior on people when they are being dehumanized. At this point of the story, Elie and the other prisoners are in a wagon traveling to a different concentration camp, and they are trying to survive in inhuman conditions. To begin, Wiesel describes, “We were given bread… We threw ourselves on it… Someone had the idea of quenching his thirst by eating snow.”
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.
Inhumanity and Cruelty in Night Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator of Germany, conducted a genocide known as the Holocaust during World War II that was intended to exterminate the Jewish population. The Holocaust was responsible for the death of about 6 million Jews. Night is a nonfiction novel written by Eliezer Wiesel about his experience during the Holocaust. Many events in the novel convey a theme of “man’s inhumanity to man”. The prisoners of the concentration camps are constantly tortured and neglected by the German officers who run the camps.
