In chapter eight of Night, Elie’s father, Shlomo, struggled with inhuman treatment more than once. He became ill and was unable to control where and when he relieved himself. Shlomo had gotten dysentery from drinking the polluted water. The other sick prisoners he was housing with were so displeased, they beat him. “Eliezer… Eliezer… tell them not to beat me… I haven’t done anything… Why are the beating me?”
The guards were not the only ones who were cruel that are inside the camp, some of the prisoners had done some pretty disgusting things. Franek, a prisoner, wanted Elie’s golden crown and did not stop tormenting Elie’s father since Elie did not give the crown at first. Elie needed his crown in order to eat, but Elie could not see his father being tormented. Franek would probably receive more rations for the crown and when he could not get it, “that presented Franek with the opportunity to torment him and, on a daily basis, to thrash him savagely” (Wiesel 55). Later, when roll call happened, Elie’s father was pleading with Elie for some food and drink because he had a fever.
Later on in the book we see Elie being subject to cruel punishment in the camp. He had seen one of the leaders at the camp engaging in relations with a female. For this he was beaten brutally with a whip, receiving 25 lashes. This is in violation of Article 5, which states that no one shall subject to torture at the hand of their government These are just a few of the violations to be found throughout the book.
Just as the woman’s son remained silent as this happened so did Eliezer as he watched men beat an old woman into submission. The prisoners of the camp had to witness other atrocities first hand, leading to numbness to the idea of death and cruelty. Upon arrival to the camp, Eliezer sees
(page 57). At this moment, Elie is being lashed with a whip. He is being punished in a cruel, degrading way. Another right that was broken was Article 9.
As several Jews jumped off the wagon an SS officer said, “Men to the left! Women to the right!” (Wiesel 29). In this instance, they treat the Jews as if they were not human, but a herd of animals, giving countless commands to separate them from their loving family. Elie and his father were forced against their own will to seperate from their own family, even if they did not want to.
In chapters 4 to 6 in the novel, “Night”, Elie Wiesel and his father continue to suffer in the grasp of the Germans. Eventually, all the Jews are moved to a new work camp, Buna, where they are overworked and undernourished, and resort to killing each other for pieces of bread. In his old home, Elie had never experienced brutality and inhumanity within it. Now, Elie and other Jews witness extreme violence and an absence of mercy that begins to erode their mental state; bringing most men to animalistic tendencies. In chapter 4, the Jews arrive in Buna.
While their dads were telling them not to. During that Elie wanted to help his father to march and not be mocked at or beaten up. The other inmates started to laugh and Elie distinctly remembered “My father had never served in the military and could not march in step. That presented Franek with the opportunity to torment him and, on a daily basis, to thrash him savagely….But my father did not make sufficient progress, and the blows continued to rain on him”(55).The germans was beating up Elie’s dad.
Elie and the other prisoners are fully exposed to the horrible inhumanity of the Nazis. Due to the brutal methods of the Nazis, they are transformed from respected individuals into obedient, animal-like automatons.
They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death.” (pg. 19) When the soldiers took them away from their home to be put in a camp of labor or death was something they never thought would happen to them. Elie did not realize the journey they were going to go through until he saw the reactions of his parents’ when the soldiers came for them.
A single needle attached to a pen holder took away someone’s identity. A pair of disheveled, ill-fitting rags stripped someone of their individuality. Depriving someone of basic necessities took away their soul. Upon arrival at the camps Elie and his father were separated from his female family members, never to see them again. Immediately, Elie along with the other prisoners were subjected to camp life.
On page 65 Elie remembers a hanging, “But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing… And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.” This statement implies that Nazis did not care if they were cruel or inhumane even to children. Also the Nazis made prisoners watch the boy struggle for life until he finally died, these hangings happened almost every day. It is hard to realise how cruel the Nazis truly were, but with the violations of Article Five, people can see just how inhumane they
For no reason other than his foul mood, he “threw himself on me like a wild beast, beating me in the chest, on my head, throwing me to the ground and picking me up again, crushing me with ever more violent blows, until I was covered in blood” (53). The use of the word “crushing”, truly shows the violence in this act. Elie was being battered, crushed by this Kapo, simply for existing in his general vicinity. The willingness to beat another human being for your own pleasure is completely
When Elie’s dad is close to death, an officer savagley beats him in front of Elie. “ I did not move, I was afraid.” he then feels guilty about his lack of action. Rather that helping, his father, he watches quietly as he is beaten when he struggles to hang on to life. Of course there would have definitley been a severe punishment for Elie or any other prisoner who spoke up against the guards but this happens so often in the camps that it becomes implied that this silent, resistant behavoir of the prisoners is what allows these types of punishments to occur everyday in the camps.
Suffering not only forces people to make inhumane decisions but it also causes people to lose hope and give up on themselves. In this section of the book, Elie describes a time where he was devastated to see his father beaten and hurt in the camps. Throughout his time in the camps, Elie saw and heard the abuse that was given to people in the camp killing his hope. The biggest turning point in the story was when he saw his father getting beat. When Idek “began beating [Elie’s father] with an iron bar … [Elie’s] father simply doubled over under the blows, but then [Elie's father] seemed to break in two like an old tree struck by lightning”
