Paul Desilva Ms. Ramirez English 9H, pr. 3 17 May, 2024 Research Paper. Identity The Holocaust and the events surrounding it had a devastating impact on the Jewish people and their religion. The actions of the Nazis resulted in the dehumanization and torture of over 2,000,000 people. The act of dehumanization can be defined as taking away the rights and qualities that make a human a human. A story that perfectly describes and encapsulates the events that happened during the Holocaust is a memoir by Elie Weisel, titled “Night.” This memoir portrays a first-hand account of the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the effects it had on the Jewish people and their religion. In Elie Weisel’s memoir, “Night,” dehumanization was caused by the condition …show more content…
All of the prisoners were also subject to beatings and attacks from guards. Elie Wiesel states in “Night,” “The Gypsy stared at him for a long time, from head to toe. As if he wished to ascertain that the person addressing him was a creature of flesh and bone, a human being with a body and a belly. Then, after waking from a deep sleep, he slapped my father with such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours.” Elizer’s father is beaten because he asked to use the bathroom. Humans were stripped of their rights to use a bathroom and were forced to use the dirty outside like dogs. Prisoners were also dehumanized by the conditions of the camps. The labor that the Jewish people endured in the concentration camps was brutal and exhausting. The cruelty of the officers there was intense. Prisoners were forced to carry 25 kilogram boxes of goods to their camps from the trains on which they came. Wells, HEW. One of the leading causes besides the gas chambers was exhaustion and malnutrition. A combination of hard labor and no food or drink for a long period of time resulted in a lot of lost lives. There was minimal food provided. Only soup and a little bit of water was given to the prisoners and some of the time the