Night Dehumanization Essay

One of Wiesel 's strengths in Night is to show the full face of dehumanization. It is something that the Nazis perpetrated against the people they imprisoned. The tattooing of numbers on the prisoners, something that Eleizer notes, is of extreme importance. A- 7713 is by definition an example of dehumanization because it robs the humanity of the individual. The abuses that the Nazis perpetrate on their prisoners is another example of dehumanization. The public beatings, the hanging of prisoners and making others walk past them, as well as the selection process are all examples of dehumanization. When Eliezer has to run at full speed to avoid being noticed during one of the selection processes, it is a reminder as to how large a role dehumanization

Wiesel makes the claim that the terror of the Holocaust existed in how everyone dehumanized one another. Moshe the Beadle is dehumanized by the people of Sighet. When Moshe comes back to tell them what experienced, Moshe is dehumanized in the way is discredited and shunned. Moshe the Beadle represents dehumanization in the treatment Moshe receives. This process continues in the train when the men on the train beat up Madame Schächter. When Madame exclaims that there’s a fire, Madame is not validated or heard. Rather, Madame is told to "shut up" and then forcibly beaten into silence. Once again, dehumanization is evident in how victims of evil treat one another. Throughout the camps, examples of children abandoning parents, people betraying one another, and internal aloneness dominating human actions until survival is all that remains are examples of dehumanization. These examples show that the Holocaust happened because individuals dehumanized one another. In seeing human beings as less than human beings, individuals were able to treat one another with a lack of dignity and voice. Wiesel 's work reminds us that anytime voice is silenced, dehumanization is the result. This becomes its own end that must be stopped at all