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.
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.
For example the Jews were forced to observe the painful death of other prisoners. The Nazis use death as threat to maintain their authority, keep the prisoners in fear and prevent them from rebelling. Elie is astound to know how cruel the Nazis are, the Nazis made death to be full of suffering and pain. This shows that the Nazi lacked something called Humanity. One can question how does one human torture another with unimaginable brutality.
The bond between a father and a son is perhaps a thing of beauty. It is sometimes what bonds them together to survive horrible occasions, such as the Holocaust that Elie Wiesel and his father went through. Throughout the march to the Birkenau concentration camps, some sons and fathers took advantage of their father's’ old age and used it to steal or betray them. This displays how dehumanization plays a role in breaking apart a family bond that was instilled in their hearts on their first days of humanity.
A Man for Himself Man's inhumanity to man represents the cruel behavior that one shows to another. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel there are many details that represent man’s inhumanity to man. In the novel the Nazis and even the Jews were cruel and vicious towards the Jews during the Holocaust, cruelty and vicious actions are shown many times in the novel. Beginning with “They struck her several times on the head- blows that might have killed her.” (Wiesel 35)
For years, our society has been driven to identify who is “like you”. Often times, this includes excluding and judging others because they are not similar to you. Every person is a complex bunch made up of objectives, feelings, and other characteristics that can be different than ours. It is easier to disregard a person as less human and less worthy than we are. The term othering is when one views or treats someone as different from oneself because the group or individual is mentally classifies as “not one of us”.
“To forget the dead would be achin to killing them a second time” by Elie Wiesel. The highest result of education is tolerance. Approxiamently six million Jews were killed during the holocaust. It shows how humanity was cruel in the past and that we still go through some of these things today. Wiesel wrote about how dehumanization can destroy a person.
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
Nobel Peace Prize to author Elie Wiesel, there are good things that come from bad experiences. Elie spent a year of his life in Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Holocaust in the concentration camps. Writing down these experiences in the novel, Night, has won him the Nobel Peace Prize for human rights. I believe these events during the Holocaust have influenced his life and are reflected in his retelling of the story. Being dehumanized puts a perspective of how life without rights can be during the Holocaust.
One of the most horrifying episodes in human history was the Holocaust, which took place during World War II and involved the systematic torture and death of millions of people. However, it is more than just a historical occurrence, it serves as a clear warning about the capacity for evil that resides inside everyone. Human nature, both good and bad, is laid bare in the crimes done during the Holocaust. The Holocaust is a blot of human civilization that tells us much about our nature, including our capacity for cruelty, indifference, and survival.
Elie recalls that while in the large ghetto, the Nazi-led captors begin to starve the Jews: “We had spent the day without food…we were exhausted” (15). The Nazi treatment of the Jews in the camps introduces the recurring theme of dehumanization that affects the Jewish people. Depriving the inhabitants of food for a day was an intentional, calculated maneuver completed with the intent to weaken those in the camps. The Nazis belived that the town would be too hungry to disobey orders and consequently would be easier to manipulate. Starving the people to force them to follow is a strategy that views the Jewish people as animals, which detaches them from their sense of humanity.
“Dehumanization is the psychological process of demonizing the enemy, making them seem less than human and hence not worthy of humane treatment. This can lead to increased violence, human rights violations, war crimes, and genocide”. The memoir “Night” by Elie Wiesel, published in 1960. It is about how Elie survived and what he suffered during the Holocaust. Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazi gradually reduced the Jews to little more than “things”.
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.
Skin Deep How would you feel if you had to watch the people you love and care about be tortured and abused? What if you were a victim of discrimination? Elie Wiesel was one of the many Jews that experienced hatred because of his race.
