Examples Of Human Rights Violations In Night By Elie Wiesel

890 Words4 Pages

Throughout the history of the world, there have always been violations of human rights where people are stripped of land, prosecuted, killed, and so many more unthinkable acts of torture. How can a human being cause such harm to another human being? Could it be out of hatred of religion, race, and/or gender? The Holocaust is an example of this. Millions of Jews were placed in concentration camps during World War II, and among them was a young boy named Elie Wiesel. He is the author of the autobiography, Night. Elie witnessed these cruel acts of rights violation in person and lived with the memories after liberation; he dealt with lack of healthcare, being treated as if they were inferior, prosecuted, and having punishments that did not fit …show more content…

Upon arrival Dr. Mengele ordered, “Men to the left! Women to the right!” (Weisel 29). Directly from the beginning women were immediately judged to be unfit to live. Skills were not taken into consideration for survival; prejudice was solely based on sex. Being seen as subhuman women were killed almost immediately and fit men were worked to death. A connection to other world conflicts would be the Salem Witch Trials. The History channel study on the Salem Witch Trials state, “Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months” (History Channel). Many of the people selected for hanging were often women and they were selected out of blatantly out of prejudice or due to sickness of a fungus in the rye, wheat, etc. Not only were they biasly selected but they were not given proper healthcare but instead killed. Often the Jews in the Holocaust had the same treatment like Elie’s experience in the infirmary. A man in the hospital with Elie stated, “Germany had no need for sick Jews… leave the infirmary before the next selection!” (Wiesel 78). He could have been killed due to something that could easily be fixed medically and he was forced to march countless hours in pain. No care was given to him whatsoever and if he showed the weakness he would be killed. The women, men, and children of the Salem Witch Trials had no choice to show weakness because of delirium and were not given care and instead