Dehumanization is to deprive of human qualities or attributes: divest of individually. What were some ways that Eliezer, his father, and his fellow Jews dehumanized? "Around five o'clock in the morning, we were expelled from the barrack. The Kapos were beating us again, but I no longer felt the pain." This shows how abominable the Nazis were testing them like if they meant nothing to the world. The Nazis had an abundance of practices to dehumanize the Jews with beatings, trying to mentally and physically put them down. On page 42 it says " I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name." Made sure they didn’t have names and, recognized or remembered by anything but a number. That’s what they did to Eliezer and the rest of the Jews that …show more content…
We trembled in the cold." They had all their personal belongings taken away from them they were nothing. They were prisoners, for being hardly any different. Next, once prisoners lost their humanity, they treat each others as crudely as the Nazis treated them. You build so much anger you eventually need to take it out on someone or something. They were slaves and had no rights, not able to speak or ,move at certain times of the day. Nazis made sure they were suffering and wanted to die. Jews eventually would crush others to better themselves. Thousands of people died in Auschwitz and Birkenau daily. Therefore, this really effected Elie's father because of the way he is treated by other people. For example, Elie didn’t give Franek his tooth so he beat Elie's dad until he caved into Franek's request. Elie notices that Franek is changing into someone else when he says "Franek burst into a savage laughter" also when Franek says " And because you made me wait, it will cost you a ration of bread" over something so little. This shows dehumanization because Franek is willing to assassinate someone to get what he wants. Also, its not just him its most of the Jews in the concentration camps. In conclusion, these were some of the ways Eliezer, his father, and his fellow Jews dehumanized and being mentally and physically broken
After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others. Throughout his recollections, it is clear that Elie has a constant struggle with his belief in God. Prior to Auschwitz, Elie was motivated, even eager, to learn about Jewish mysticism.
to the dehumanization of the Jews. He uses descriptive adjectives to shed light on what is truly happening. He also uses irony to help the reader understand the cluelessness of himself and the Jews. Wiesel’s way of writing in the book demonstrates the theme of dehumanization through false
During the marches between camps some of these broken souls would drop to the side of the road where they were shot and killed by a Nazi guard. Eliezer saw others do this, and soon he was thinking of joining
callous to the death of their peers, and going so far as to murder fellow
Dehumanization was a big part of these camps. The Nazis would kick innocent Jewish families and send them to concentration or death camps. The main way they dehumanized these Jewish people is when they take all their possessions. In Night they go around taking all there gold and silver, make them leave their small bags of clothing on the train, and finally give them crappy clothing. All this reduces their emotions; they go from owing all these possessions to not having a cent to their name. If I was in that situation I would just be in shock with such a huge change in such a short amount of time. The next way they dehumanized the Jewish people were they stopped using names and gave them all numbers. For example in Night Eliezer’s number was A-7713. Not only were all their possessions taken, but also their names. Your name can be something that separates you from another person. Now they are being kept by their number, almost as if that’s all they are, a number. If I was in their place I would question my importance, why am I here, am I just a number waiting to be replaced? The third way they were dehumanized was that on their “death march” they were forced to run nonstop all day with no food or water. If you stopped or slowed down, you were killed with no regards for your life. The prisoners were treated like cattle. They were being yelled at to run, run faster and such. They were not treated as equal humans. If the officers were tired, they got replaced. Dehumanization affected all the victims of the Holocaust in some sort of way from them losing all their possessions, their name, or being treated unfairly/ like animals.
Because of the circumstances of the camp, the pure and caring boy changed into a boy with an empty heart. Elie says “Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore”(Wiesel 113). His heart, filled with joy and caring, disappeared. One last reason, the horrible accidents from the past contradicts the moral values of the Bible and nonchristian view. In Matthew 12:25 it says, “Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.”
In looking back upon his experience in Auschwitz, Primo Levi wrote in 1988: ?It is naïve, absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal system such as National Socialism (Nazism) sanctifies its victims. On the contrary, it degrades them, it makes them resemble itself.? (Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 40). The victims of National Socialism in Levi?s book are clearly the Jewish Haftlings. Survival in Auschwitz, a book written by Levi after he was liberated from the camp, clearly makes a case that the majority of the Jews in the lager were stripped of their human dignity. The Jewish prisoners not only went through a physical hell, but they were psychologically driven under as well. Levi writes, ??the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts? We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death?? (Levi, 41). One would be hard pressed to find passages in Survival in Auschwitz that portray victims of the camp as being martyrs. The treatment of the Jews in the book explicitly spells out the dehumanization to which they were subjected. It is important to look at how the Jews were degraded in the camp, and then examine whether or not they came to embody National Socialism after this.
Eliezer’s horrible experiences at Auschwitz left him caught up in his sorrows and anger toward God. His loss of faith in God arises at Auschwitz. He doubts arise when he first sees the furnace pits in which the Nazis are burning babies. This horrifying experience ...
This is emphasized in all relationships throughout the book in some of the most unbelievable ways. In the beginning of the book, when the jews were sent in cattle cars to concentration camps and Mrs. Schachter was screaming about a fire she repeatedly saw and because she was implementing fear in others, “she received several blows to the head, blows that could have been lethal” (Wiesel 26). The jews were quick to turn to violence on someone from their own religion. The violence that was spread had no effect on them, proving that in times of fear it is easy to dehumanize and turn to inhumane actions. It is ironic that they are dehumanizing another Jew when they should be supporting one another. Initially the German Nazis dehumanize the jews through violence, gas chambers, and unhealthy conditions but it is surprising to find the Jews begin to dehumanize the officers. The jews describe the officers as, “An assassin’s face, fleshy lips, hands resembling a wolf's paws” (wiesel 48). The thematic thread of animal imagery is used throughout the text to emphasize the effects of dehumanization and the natural instinct all people have to be inhumane. Elie teaches this lesson to support his overall purpose of informing about the history and making sure his past does not become the next generation's
When Elie’s father is physically harmed for first time, Elie is“petrified” that his father “had just been struck” and that he “had not even blinked” (Wiesel 39). This demonstrates that Elie is truly taken aback by his change in behavior, indicating that he may not have reacted the same way to this action before he was exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust. Yet, he is not the only one that experienced this alteration, Elie also mentions that he “once saw” a pipel “beat his father for not making his bed properly” (Wiesel 63). The pipel more than likely felt entitled to do this because due to their pretty faces, pipels were often, but not always, treated better in concentration camps than other prisoners. Nonetheless, the marks that the Holocaust left on each of its victims are
One way people responded to inhumanity was by losing their faith. This was shown when Elie saw babies being thrown into flames and experiencing the tragedy of people dying. Elie said, “Why should I sanctify His name? The almighty, the internal and terrible Master of the universe, chose to be silent, what was there to
On their way to the concentration camp, a German officer said, “’There are eighty of you in the car… If anyone is missing, you’ll all be shot like “dogs” ”’ (Wiesel 24). This shows that the Germans compared the Jews to dogs or animals, and that the German have no respect towards the Jews. Arrived at the concentration camp, the Jews were separated from their friends and family. The first thing of the wagon, a SS officer said, “’Men to the left! Women to the right!”’ (Wiesel 29). After the separation, Eliezer saw the crematories. There he saw “’a truck [that] drew close and unloaded its hold: small children, babies … thrown into the flames.” (Wiesel 32). This dehumanize the Jews, because they were able to smell and see other Jews burn in the flames. Later on the Jew were forced to leave their cloth behind and have been promise that they will received other cloth after a shower. However, they were force to work for the new cloth; they were forced to run naked, at midnight, in the cold. Being force to work for the cloth, by running in the cold of midnight is dehumanizing. At the camp, the Jews were not treated like human. They were force to do thing that was unhuman and that dehumanized
Dehumanization is shown when Wiesel was in Auschwitz and a guard “looked at us as one would a pack of leprous dogs clinging to life.” (Wiesel 38). This shows dehumanization because the guard is not looking at them as humans but as sick dogs. Another example of dehumanization is when the Jews were on the cattle cars and a German officer says “If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs.” showing that the officer does not think of them as human beings but as dogs. The stage of genocide, polarization, is shown in the book when the Germans created the ghettos for the Jews, “Then came the ghettos.” (Wiesel 11). This shows polarization because it separated the Jews into two separate ghettos. Another example of this is when the hungarian police made the Jews leave the ghettos to go to the death camps and concentration camps “The time has come… you must leave all this…” (Wiesel 16). This shows polarization because it splits up the ghettos even more thinly because they are moving them to different locations and splitting the ghettos at different times. Dehumanization and polarization were shown in the book and are quite obvious stages of
Dehumanization Through Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, is an account about his experience through concentration camps and death marches during WWII. In 1944, fifteen year old Wiesel was one of the many Jews forced onto cattle cars and sent to death and labor camps. Their personal rights were taken from them, as they were treated like animals. Millions of men, women, children, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled people, and Slavic people had to face the horrors the Nazi’s had planned for them. Many people witnessed and lived through beatings, murders, and humiliations.
of loss of faith from the very beginning to the end as a Jew in a concentration camp. Elie starts