Desensitization in Night

All humans are supposed to have emotion, but when people don’t have anything to hold on to positive emotions can become dormant. The memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, is Wiesel’s story from surviving the Holocaust with the help of his father and fighting to stay alive day by day. Wiesel suffered from brutal conditions in labor camps and managed to survive through the agony while watching others perished every day. The unnatural behavior by the S.S. led to dehumanization that shattered the faith of Elie Wiesel and many other prisoners.

Although first impressions of the German soldiers were reassuring to Wiesel and many Jews at first, shortly after they had arrived the Jew’s freedoms were taken without any warning. German soldiers took the Jew’s rights one at a time. First, Jews were not allowed to leave there house for three days. Then, they were no longer allowed to keep their gold, jewels, or valuable items. Wiesel explains, “Everything had to be handed over to the authorities, under penalty of death. My father went down to the cellar and buried out savings” (8). Next, they were forced to wear the yellow star. Eventually, Jews were not allowed to go into restaurants or cafes, to travel the railway, attend synagogue, or go into the street after six o’clock. The last step was that two ghettos were formed in the town of Sighet. It was like they were dogs in a fenced crate, not allowed to go anywhere or do anything. When the Jews started to question Wiesel’s father during the development of these rules, he reassured every one, and acted like it was no big deal. Wiesel’s father settled and acknowledged the situation claiming, “The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don’t die of it…” (Wiesel 9). None of the Jews including Wiesel’s fami...

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...he crematory. Understanding how all of the S.S. treated the prisoners that horrendously is not comprehensible to humans today. Human nature would have emotion for others.

The unimaginable actions from German authorities in the concentration camps of the Holocaust were expected to be tolerated by weak prisoners like Wiesel or death was an alternate. These constant actions from the S.S. officers crushed the identification of who Wiesel really was. When Wiesel’s physical state left, so did his mental state. If a prisoner chose to have a mind of their own and did not follow the S.S. officer’s commands they were written brutally beaten or even in severe cases sentenced to their death. After Wiesel was liberated he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize who he was anymore. No prisoner that was a part of the Holocaust could avoid inner and outer turmoil.