Night by Elie Wiesel: The Dehumanizing of Jews during the Holocaust

Dehumanization “Without passion, without haste, they slaughtered prisoners” (Wiesel 5). Night by Elie Wiesel explores the horror of the ways the Jews were treated during the Holocaust. No matter what age or gender, the Nazi's treated all Jews like "animals" or "things ". No one called the Jews by their names, just their prison numbers as if they were only figures to be put to work. The atrocities that happened during the Holocaust were not only unbearable for most Jews, but also unimaginable for all. Throughout the Holocaust Hitler used different dehumanization tactics to not only destroy the Jews spiritual beliefs, but also negatively affect family relationships in an attempt to dehumanize the entire Jewish race. During the Holocaust the Jewish people were exposed to extreme persecution, which caused some to doubt their faith and others to completely lose it. When leaving his home for transport to a concentration camp, Eliezer comments, "I looked at my house in which I had spent years seeking my God, fasting to hasten the coming of the Messiah, imagining what my life would be like later. Yet I felt little sadness. My mind was empty"(Wiesel 19). Although Eliezer’s faith is not yet gone, Eliezer leaves some of his religious pursuits behind, along with his childhood home and innocence. While walking through Birkenau, the Jewish people start to experience inhuman things that were unimaginable, and many start to pray. As Eliezer observes,

"Someone began to recite the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I don't know whether, during the history of the Jewish people, men have ever before recited the Kaddish for themselves... 'May his name be celebrated and sanctified' ... "whispered my father. For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify his name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank him for" (Wiesel 33). Eliezer begins to lose his unconditional devotion to God and questions God’s good purpose. Eliezer, along with many other Jews, couldn’t understand Gods absence during the Holocaust and how God would allow such suffering in this world. This causes not only Eliezer to lose his devotion to God, but fellow Jews as well. “ ‘For Gods sake, where is God?' And within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where- hanging here from the gallows...’ ”(Wiesel XX). Again readers see that Eliezer feels that the Germans have murdered his God. With the destruction of Eliezer's innocence, so died the idea of God that Eliezer believed in as a boy and a young man. Eliezer didn't completely give up on God, but he doubted his overall justice. Beyond Eliezer, who just gave up on Gods absolute justice, many Jewish people completely gave up on God. Throughout the Holocaust, concentration camps had a deep affect on the Jewish families and relationships. Camps not only forced families to separate, but also in some cases caused people to turn on their family members, which is a sign of dehumanization. “Men to left! Women to the right!' Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother... I didn't know that this was the moment in time and place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever. I kept walking, my father

holding my hand. My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone. It was imperative to stay together"(Wiesel 29). As the Wiesel family enters Birkenau, Eliezer is separated from his mother and sisters forever. During this moment Eliezer had only one thought on his mind, and that was to not lose his father. The concentration camp was one example of how Hitler negatively affected families’ relationships. " ‘Meir, my little Meir! Don't you recognize me... You're killing your father... I have bread... for you too... for you too...' He collapsed. But his fist was still clinching a small crust. He wanted to raise it to his mouth. But the other threw himself on him. The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. Nobody cared. His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and began to devour it.”(Wiesel 101). In the horrible situation that the concentration camps have created, physical needs are evaluated above all others and a son kills his father for a piece of bread. This is the ultimate example of how Hitler made concentration camps so unbearable and dehumanizing that a son would be willing to kill his own father for something as little as a piece of bread. Hitler attempted to dehumanize the entire Jewish race by treating them like animals. “ ‘There are eighty of you in the car,’..."If anyone goes missing, you will be shot like dogs’"(Wiesel 24). The Nazi's crammed the Jewish people into cattle cars to transport them from place to place. As if being in a cattle car isn't dehumanizing enough, the conditions made it worse. Lying down or sitting was not an option; there was barely any air, and by the second day of traveling thirst and heat became intolerable. The Nazi official also said that they would be "shot like dogs", not humans. This shows how the Jews were already being seen as less than human. The Nazis didn’t even have enough respect for the Jews to shoot them like humans, so they would shoot them like dogs. Another example of how Hitler dehumanized the Jews occurs when Ellie arrived at Auschwitz. He saw bodies of killed Jews being burned in mass graves. Men, women, and children's bodies were tossed like meat into huge piles and burned. A parallel to this would be when the animal shelter gets too many animals, and they eventually have to kill off some animals. When they do, they get rid of the bodies by burning them. Hitler dehumanized the Jewish race by treating them like animals.
Hitler used many different dehumanization tactics in his process of reducing the humanity of the Jewish race. Concentration camps, Hitlers main tactic, gas chambers, and furnaces were used to not only kill Jews, but also to cause humiliation, torture, and suffering for them. With these inhuman tactics, Hitler attempted to kill off an entire race to achieve his end goal, extermination of the Jewish people. Overall Hitler worked to completely dehumanize the Jewish people, break up their family relationships, and attempted to destroy the Jews spiritual beliefs.