The Dehumanization Of Jews In Elie Wiesel's Death Camps

The Dehumanization of Jews in Death Camps The Holocaust was the systematic, agonizing tyranny and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi force and its confederates. They came to power in January of 1933 and believed that Germans were “racially superior”. Their motive was to cleanse the community and accomplish the creation of the “master race”. They took out gypsies, the disabled, and Slavic peoples. Others were taken out on ideological, political, and behavioral aspects such as homosexuals and Jehovah's witnesses. However, the focus was geared toward Jews. One young Jewish boy in particular, Elie Wiesel, was a survivor. He comes from Sighet, Romania. At the age of fifteen, him and his family were sent to the world’s most infamous death camp.

They were tricked to believe the circumstances seemed to be admissible; however, the irony of it all states that Nazi’s would have the Jews killed within a year. Despite the fact that Elie and his family were were put into ghettos, living with up to two other families within the block, they remained to have visible human traits before being imprisoned .“A sunny spring day, people strolled seemingly carefree through the crowded streets. They exchanged cheerful greetings. Children played games, rolling hazelnuts on the sidewalks” (12). The chaotic transfer to the ghettos slowly returned to normal and the Jews felt some form of solace. “Little by little life returned to “normal”. The barbed wire that encircled us like a wall did not fill us with real fear. In fact, we felt this was not a bad thing; we were entirely among ourselves”

As of now anyone that wasn’t of the Aryan race were put into these death camps that were located vastly. Jews now regret putting the slightest bit of trust into the Nazis. The German forces managed to condemn anything and everything that made them “human”. On the gruesome trip to Birkenau, there was a certain Mrs.Schachter. She experienced somewhat of a hallucination, disturbing those around her. Enough to make the irritable passengers react in an uncivilized way. “When they actually struck her, people shouted their approval...she received several blows to the head, blows that could have been lethal” (26). Would one be willing to kill for crumbs of bread? Could one even stand to kill a young boy for his actions? “And the spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread...He collapsed. But his fist was still clutching a small crust..the old man mumbled something, groaned and died. Nobody cared...his son searched him, took the crust of bread and began to devour it..they jumped him. When they withdrew, there were two dead bodies next to me, the father and the son”