Dehumanization In The Holocaust

In human history, there have been few acts of psychological and physical torture viewed as being as cruel and insensitive as dehumanization. Dehumanization is the process by which a person or group of people are reduced to a subhuman level by some oppressor, and treated as an object or animal rather than a person. This process has been employed for centuries by various oppressors as a way to expedite the torture or killing of oppressed groups. Specifically, dehumanization was one of the tactics employed to carry out one of the bloodiest genocides in history: the Holocaust during World War II. The Holocaust represents over 9 million deaths, most of them the product of the mass killing of the Jewish people. One very well-known story of life during

Prisoners were made to live in small barracks filled over capacity with hundreds of people. Bunks were made from wood and only sometimes straw, but nothing else. In times of crowding there would be three or four to a bunk. Such close proximity meant that the bunks grew incredibly dirty and infested with lice or other pests. More threatening, though, was the fact that any illness would spread rapidly, and without adequate medical care prisoners died in large numbers from diseases such as

For example, livestock are often kept in small, enclosed spaces during the night, are shipped in small rail cars, and live essentially to grow up and die. These treatments are paralleled by Wiesel’s experiences in concentration camps: he slept in very crowded bunks and was transported literally in cattle cars. Furthermore, one person Wiesel overhears as he enters Birkenau says that "....We can't let them kill us like that, like cattle in the slaughterhouse. We must revolt (31)”, referring to how so many were killed in crematoriums. However, arguably the most important factor that distinguishes humans from animals is a personal identity. Humans have names, families, heritage, and so much more that wild animals lack. What the Nazis aimed to do in concentration camps was to remove every part of a prisoner’s identity, systematically and without