Universal Human Rights Violations

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When a select group of people are treated as less than human, there are consequences for everyone: the victims, the victimizers and the bystanders. The book Night by Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, contains many examples of people 's Universal Human Rights being violated in the depths of concentration camps. Those examples show how victims of this are dehumanized little by little every time those rights are violated. Almost all 30 rights were violated throughout the book, but a few were violated on a more frequent basis and they did the most harm. The more frequent rights violated from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were articles five, six and seventeen, and this essay will explain how these human rights dehumanized inhabitants …show more content…

One example of when this right was violated is towards the beginning of the book, when Elie and his fellow Jews just arrive to their first concentration camp and Elie witnesses “babies.. Children thrown into the flames” by the truckloads (Wiesel 32). This had to be extremely demoralizing to see your own people die such a horrible death and also for those victims of the deaths to be babies and children is even worse. This event violated human rights because being put to death by flames is torture and it is degrading and unfair treatment and punishment not only to those who died by it but for those other inmates who had to witness it. Another event that violated the fifth article of human rights is later in the story when Elie is punished unjustly and receives “twenty-five” whip lashes and then is verbally assaulted by his Kapo for “mix[ing] into other people’s affairs” (Wiesel 57-58). What had happened was that Elie accidentally caught his Kapo having sexual relations with a Polish girl, and Idek, the Kapo, felt the need to punish Elie for it although he was not guilty for anything. This event was very dehumanizing and demoralizing for Elie because he was brutally punished in front of his entire block. This sort of treatment towards Elie violated human rights because it was a form of torture and also was an unjust punishment that broke Elie down physically and also emotionally and