...Everyone is guilty of dehumanizing others in some way, shape or form. In wars, dehumanization is inevitable, in fact it is central to the idea of war itself. The German Nazi government in power during World War II thought of Jews in this way, leading to the extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust in various concentration camps. Elie Wiesel’s experience as a Holocaust survivor is documented in his memoir, Night. The theme of dehumanization of war in Night shifts from the way the Nazis treat prisoners like Elie to the they treat each other and themselves. The beginning of the story highlights the way the Nazi dehumanized their prisoners. Elie had arrived with his family at Auschwitz, then he was separated from his mother and younger...
Words: 836 - Pages: 4
...In the book Night, the main character Elie Wiesel, endures a traumatizing event that will stay with him forever. It begins when the Gestapo, who the Jews thought were there to save them, arrive at Sighet. Upon their arrival, they quickly acted and moved every Jew into the ghetto. Soon following, Elie and the others woke up to the Gestapo yelling, “All Jews, outside! Hurry!” (Wiesel 63) There they stood for hours, with their belongings, deprived of food and water, waiting to be put into a cattle car. The Jews began to realize that the Germans weren’t out to save them and “from that moment on everything happened very quickly. The race toward death had begun” (Wiesel 52). As Night progresses, the theme of dehumanization, to treat someone like...
Words: 416 - Pages: 2
...In Elie Wiesel's Holocaust memoir Night, Elie witnesses the dehumanization of the Jewish people by the Nazis as he experiences the loss of his humanity by the Nazi party.Elie first experiences dehumanization when he is forced into living in the local Ghetto in his hometown of Sighet Transylvania. As he is deported from the Sighet Ghetto, the Hungarian Police pack the Jews into the cattle cars where they experience brutal conditions and many die. After their long and grueling trip to the concentration camp they are subject to more dehumanization in the form of slave labor and mass killings of their friends and relatives. Thus being a few of the may reasons why dehumanization is a terrible act that cannot be allowed Dehumanazation was a terrible...
Words: 635 - Pages: 3
...good luck trying to find it. Sayonara, au revoir, adios, bye. Elie Wiesel’s Night deals with his loss of faith in his God. Wiesel’s problem can be root all the way back to 1942, the beginning of Elie’s awakening, his first insight into the real world, his first insight into the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a horrid event, of ruthless killing, of senseless slaughter, destroying families, and a whirlwind of destruction. Under strain, ones happiness and ones faith is slowly whittled under the knife of opposition and pressure. Elie has lost so much through out his life, losing his family, his friends, but most importantly his faith. The first example of Elie loosing his faith is when he arrived at Auschwitz, Elie and his father are directed to go to the left; a prisoner then informs them that they are on their way to the crematory, Elie’s father recites the Kaddish or prayer for the dead, revolt rises up inside of Elie and he questions God, “Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for? (Wiesel 31)”. Elie is hopeless, his situation rendering him of his beliefs unable to believe that a holy being could cause such grief. He was stricken with terror that even after his prayers, his deep devotion to the great “lord” that God has thrust him into this “hell”. Another example of prisoners in the concentration camp loosing their faith in Night is when the Pipel, a young child, was hung in front of the...
Words: 779 - Pages: 4
...In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, the narrator describes how he struggled to survive in numerous concentration camps during the Holocaust. Eliezer changes throughout the text from a religious to an unemotional, lifeless being; the dehumanization he endured in the camps caused him to lose his childhood. Elie Wiesel uses simile, personification, and metaphor to demonstrate the effects of dehumanization. Wiesel uses simile to demonstrate that dehumanization causes people to act like animals. For example, Eliezer states how inhumanly his actions are: “ A man appeared, crawling like a worm in the direction of the cauldrons”(Wiesel 66). This quote demonstrates that people would do anything for the survival of themselves. Even if they were shot down, they would want to help themselves first before others. This quote is animal-like because, in the story, Eliezer is describing this prisoner to a worm. Elie dehumanizes others because he is jealous and wants what others have. The use of the word worm implies to an animal who slithers on the ground. In conclusion, Wiesel uses simile to demonstrate that dehumanization causes people to act like animals. Wiesel uses personification to demonstrate that dehumanization causes people to go crazy. For example, Eliezer states, “We...
Words: 407 - Pages: 2
...lost the desire to live due to the cruel acts of Hitler’s regime. Even after WWII, victims still would cling to the fear of enduring the abuse of the Nazis. Several victims wish these memories would vanish from their subconscious, but instead Elie Wiesel took the liberty of writing Night, which is a memoir that valiantly recounts his experience as a Holocaust survivor. His autobiographical account of the concentration camps grimly illustrates the agony felt by the victims and exposes to the public how the actions of the Nazi regime would mentally, physically, and emotionally affect the...
Words: 1080 - Pages: 5
...The Psychology of Evil: Night "Nobody is ever just a refugee. Nobody is ever just a single thing. We dehumanize people when we reduce them to a single thing and this dehumanization is insidious and unconscious," said Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian novelist, and former refugee. As Adichie said, dehumanizing, being treated like animals, is a horrendous thing and it has happened in the past and continues to happen today. History is full of situations where victimizers abused their power resulting in deindividualized and dehumanized victims. Such as Elie Wiesel was not just prisoner A-7713, he was a human being as were others put into concentration camps and many who have been oppressed and dehumanized. In Philip Zimbardo’s experiment the guards dehumanized and deindividualized the prisoners (Zimbardo). In Night the prisoners were dehumanized when Dr. Mengele made them...
Words: 1993 - Pages: 8
...jealousy, and power. A perfect example of the latter would be the Holocaust where humans tortured and killed other humans because they were different. In Eliezier Wiesel’s memoir, Night he describes the extreme cruelty and suffering he endures in Auschwitz and other concentration camps as a child inmate during the Holocaust. Wiesel can neither explain nor understand the reasons for human cruelty that he witnesses and endures during the Holocaust, but learns that cruelty breeds more of the same and in the end survival and self-preservation is all that matters. Night sample thesis statements: You may borrow one, make it your own or write one from scratch: 1. Question: Analyze Elie and other characters’ struggle with faith. You can approach this chronologically or by effects. What is Elie’s final judgment on the benefit/cost of faith? Consider Elie’s interpretations of God’s intentions and use of visual imagery (such as death and night imagery). Thesis: At the beginning of the novel Elie has a desire to grow his religious faith and connection to God; however, as the story progresses and he witnesses tremendous suffering and loss his faith is shaken and lost. 2. Question: Analyze the essence and effects of dehumanization and human cruelty in Night on the perpetrators and/or the victims. Does Night help explain why people are capable of terrible crimes against...
Words: 420 - Pages: 2
...In 1986, Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights activism and campaigns against worldwide genocide and violence. In his acceptance speech, Wiesel said “When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe”. Wiesel found himself a target of the Nazi “Final Solution” while still only a teenager. Confined first to ghettos, Wiesel along with his whole family were then deported to the death camps at Auschwitz in 1944. The tough labor, the gruesome beatings along with the terrible conditions of Auschwitz...
Words: 863 - Pages: 4
...Arrishen Nanthakumar Ms. Mitchell ENG 4U0 7 November 2016 Night Essay Ellie Wiesel’s purpose of writing the night was to show the world the real horrors of the holocaust. Ellie successfully created an atmosphere in which the reader can achieve a heightened understanding of the horror of the holocaust. He uses literary devices, Diction and Syntax to show how it felt to be part of the holocaust. He wrote Night to not stay silent and bear witness to the holocaust. He used literary devices such as Alliteration, Foreshadowing and Irony to really make the reader feel like they were experiencing the same things Wiesel did in the holocaust. The author used Foreshadowing using Madame Schachter. She had visions of horrible things occurring outside...
Words: 1010 - Pages: 5
...course of their entire life. Adolph Hitler was a German man who believed his race should rule over all other races. Blue eyes and blonde hair is what kept a person safe in the 1940’s. Hitler used the power of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) and the strength of the paramilitary organization Schutzstaffel (SS) to establish himself as dictator of Germany. He was a very charismatic man, which was beneficial to his goal to have people support his desire to rid Germany of all “undesirable” people. Under his direction and with the aid of his followers, Hitler was successful in “exterminating” millions of non-Germans and non-Christians in a dark segment of history called the Holocaust. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Elie Wiesel’s Night, and Gerda Weissmann’s recollections in One Survivor Remembers center around events which took place before and during World War II. These three titles observe how the human spirit is able to respond to unimaginable horrors and unspeakable situations with an indomitable inner strength, enduring hope, and creative defenses. Even in the worst circumstances, the human spirit will not surrender. In the 1940 time era, a person who was not German or Christian was tortured in many devastating and heart-wrenching ways. Slowly, everything was taken from these people, particularly the Jews. Initially, those who did not match the “perfect” identity were forced from their homes with a small amount of personal documents and other belongings and...
Words: 1744 - Pages: 7
...He witnessed over thousands die and more suffer. He survived one of the worst events in human history and is now sharing his unbelievable journey with millions across the world. In his Holocaust memoir Night, Elie Wiesel discusses the theme of Race. Through his use of diction, imagery, and dialogue Wiesel powerfully expresses to the reader that the Holocaust was an extremely painful journey with many struggles along the way. Wiesel’s use of diction specifically demonstrates the dehumanization and racist effects shown toward the Jews everyday. In chapter 6, one of the SS officers addresses the Jews as “Filthy dogs!” (Wiesel 63). This use of diction shows that the SS officers did not even view the Jews as Jew or as any race at all. Instead they viewed them as dogs, filthy dogs. The word filthy implies the meaning of disgust or unsanitary. As if it is their own fault that they are dirty. Another use of diction was in chapter 5, “I had ceased myself to be anything but ashes.” (Wiesel 50). “Ceased myself to be anything,” means nothing. He has become nothing but ashes. It is very straight to the point, short and brief....
Words: 891 - Pages: 4
...The Corruption of Power In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel shows the corruption brought on by power. As a young boy, Wiesel is taken to Auschwitz, the most infamous concentration camp of World War II. From there he travels from camp to camp, eventually losing his father to death right before liberation. Several experiments and people prove the corruption of power. In the Stanford prison experiment, the guards become cold and ruthless in their punishment of the prisoners. Hitler convinces an entire nation to follow his twisted version of a future. Many concentration camps are known worldwide for their past cruelty. In all of these cases, people use power to exert control over others. If power is used to control, then in the wrong hands the old axiom is true: absolute power does corrupt absolutely. As an example of the corruption of power, guards exert unjust control over prisoners in the Stanford prison experiment. In fact, one guard says after the experiment, “Once you slip into that costume, you become that person.” The experiment is just a farce, but it becomes so real they have to call it off eight days before the allotted time for the experiment is up. The guards and prisoners are both ordinary students, but they change drastically during the six days of the experiment. The guards have power thrust upon them...
Words: 543 - Pages: 3
...believing in a God who would let such things happen without intervening. This shows that a real God would not let such cruelty happen. Over time as he experienced more hardship and cruelty as his faith eroded to nothing. In conclusion when people experience dehumanization and cruelty their faith can be...
Words: 1029 - Pages: 5
...Dehumanization: Essential for the attempt to execute a population The Holocaust was one of the most devastating events leading up to World War II, was the Holocaust, which millions of people were tortured and murdered by the Nazis. Hitler was an anti-Semitic political leader of the Nazi regime, who believed that the Jewish “race” contaminated the Aryan population, and therefore needed to be eliminated. The Nuremberg Laws were laws that excluded Jews and non-Aryans from German citizenship as well as their natural rights. In addition, “Jewishness” was defined in racial terms. One strategy that allowed the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust was their disregard for non-Germans, treating them as less than human. Dehumanization is considered...
Words: 2143 - Pages: 9
