Preview

Dehumanization In Night Research Paper

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
607 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Dehumanization In Night Research Paper
Faith Stolzer
World History II
Kenneth Barnes
18 November 2015
Dehumanization in Night by Elie Wiesel
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer is a young boy who lived in a small Jewish town called Sighet; during the middle of World War II. Eliezer was a strong willed boy, who loved to learn and study Jewish law and tradition. Even if his father didn’t allow him to study all forms of Judaism; Eliezer did anyway. Like the mystical form of Judaism called the cabbala. In the beginning of the war Eliezer’s father and other important figures in Sighet heard of the anti-sematic actions of the German army, but brushed it off. Even when Eliezer’s secret teacher, Moshe the Beadle, is exiled due to an anti-sematic act, they go about their lives as normal. When Moshe escapes and returns with stories
…show more content…
This stripped the Jews of one of the most unique things about their individuality. “I became A-7713, from then on I had no other name” (Wiesel 42). And once again the Germans had taken a bit of Human from the Jews.
Many factors contributed to the reason that the Germans tried to dehumanize the Jews in the concentration camps, partly so that they would lose the will to live. I feel like the German soldiers, ruthless as they were to the Jews, needed to dehumanize the Inmates because they didn’t have enough immortality to kill. But since the Jews were viewed, treated, and forced to live like animals, the German soldiers didn’t feel as wrong killing them.
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, he describes the way that the Jewish people in Europe were dehumanized and treated like animals. Starting with Anti-sematic laws that took away citizenship from the Jews, then moving into the concentration camps like the one Eliezer and his family were at, Auschwitz, where the Jewish people were stripped of their personal identity, clothing, and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Dehumanization

    • 869 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Dehumanization within Night The author of Night , a novel documenting the horrible and gruesome events of the holocaust, Elie Wiesel expresses imagery to show the dehumanization of the jewish people by the Nazis as the jews develop the “survival of the fittest” mentality, and as Eliezer loses the ability to express emotions. All jews, as a race were brutalized by the Nazis during this time; reducing them to no less than objects, positions which meant nothing to them, belongings that were a nuisance. Nazis would gather every jew they could find and bring them to theses infernos, separating the men and women. Families, not knowing they would never see each other again. Individuals within the categories were divided even more, based on their health, strength and age. They would be judged by a Nazi officer, which would then decide their fate, if they would have the opportunity to live or if they would be sentenced straight to execution. In these camps, babies became target practice, being tossed in the air like an object with no significant value and shot at with no remorse. The more mature could be sentenced to execution, tossed into pits of fire while fully conscious burning them alive. In addition, the ones who passed inspection received treatment as if they were slaves and dogs, making them follow any command, any disobeying of these demands would consequence them to be shot without hesitation. These dehumanizing crimes were the punishments forced on the Jewish race by the Naziinfluence, turing Jewish nationality into a nuisance against what they believed.…

    • 869 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    night dehumanization

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages

    NIGHT ESSAY The Jews were dehumanized in many ways by the Nazi’s. Dehumanization is making humans feel like less than people. Three ways the Nazis dehumanized the Jews was by starvation, being treated like animals and, physical abuse. Here are examples of all three of those dehumanizing methods.…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Erika Sharrett March 23, 2015 English 11-Night Essay Dehumanization is defined as the psychological process of demonizing the enemy, making them seem less than human and hence not worth of humane treatment. It also can lead to increased violence, human rights violations, war crimes, and genocide. When there is severe hatred and aversion towards a different group, it can direct to classifying the rival as inhuman and treating them with bestial punishment. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, the Jews were victims of the Nazis and were dehumanized to the equivalence of animals, treated horribly, and faced with the challenge of survival daily.…

    • 1012 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Second way the Germans dehumanize the Jews was The Star of David. The Jews had to wear a star that said “Jews.”…

    • 373 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the Second World war, the Nazis built concentration camps that were used to kill millions of people, mostly Jews. When the war came to an end, few camp prisoners were able to survive. One of the survivors of these death camps was Elie Wiesel, the author of Night. In his book Night, he shows how the Nazis dehumanized the Jews in the concentration camps. The Nazis did this through stripping the Jews from their identity, eliminating them systematically and by changing the feelings that they had towards their family and other people.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Holocaust was a horrendous phenomenon that slaughtered and devastated many Jews. Adolf Hitler at the time was the dictator making the regulations and forcing them into concentration camps . Where they were put through purgatory enduring many catastrophic experiences. One of those Jews being Eliezer Wiesel, he was a son, brother, and a friend. He never could conceptualize this notion of being tortured and dehumanized in such violent ways. Throughout the novel Night, character Eliezer Wiesel experiences dehumanization along with his father Shlomo and other Jews. The Nazis target the vulnerable Jews humanity, and diminished their feelings of being a human. This sudden loss of humanity decreased the desire to live in the holocaust victims to vanish and led to many deaths among Jews. The Nazis had many despicable practices used to brutalize the Jewish People. These practices included torture, starvation and dehydration, and physical and emotional abuse.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nic Lutz Mrs. Gruehn English 11 2 November 17 Night Essay How did the German army dehumanize the Jews? All of the Jews in Elies hometown are taken to labor camps to work. All of the Jews were fed little and were tightly packed houses. They wanted to extinguish all of the Jews. They only wanted to keep the strong Jews to do the hard work. In Elie Wiesel's book the Night, the German Army dehumanizes Elie Wiesel and the Jewish prisoners by depriving them of love, safety, and physiological needs.…

    • 576 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Night, the deep desire of escaping the concentrated camps dehumanized many. Elie and his family along with other characters in the book were slaughtered,…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dehumanization is the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities. When the jews went to the concentration camps they did not know what was happening because they trusted Hitler. The jews were taken from their homes and put in ghettos, then put in cattle cars. After the jews got to the camps and were immediately dehumanized, they were put into groups of guys and women and then it all started. In the memoir night by Elie Wiesel it explains how the Nazis dehumanized the jews in the camps, they took away their name and gave them number, they put them in cattle cars, and they took away their belongings.…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It does not take much to realize that many actions during this time, were awfully dehumanizing. Hitler and the Nazi Party began to dehumanize Jews in particular by doing a variety of things. Like any other devious plan, they found ways to signal a change. Jews were targeted by being dehumanized, a noticeable inequality between Jews and others, a sort of propaganda, etc. Continuing…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever wondered how it would be like to be treated like animals and make you do stuff you don’t want to do? Well, this is how prisoners in the holocaust where treated like. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel one of the main themes is dehumanization, or to deprive of positive human qualities. Three examples of dehumanization in the book are, first the tattoos on their left arms. Second, the barracks where they slept in 3. And third, the cattle cars with 80 people inside it and no water or food, and very little air.…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The article 8 stages of genocide, written by Gregory H. Stanton, identifies dehumanization that can be found inside Holocaust while people of jewish descent were tortured, “One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are acquainted with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in print and on hate radios is used to vilify the victims group”(pg. 3). In the memoir Night, Wiesel states, “ I had watched the whole scene without moving. I kept quiet. In fact I was thinking of how to get farther away so that I would not be hit myself. What is more, any anger I felt at that moment was directed, not against the Kapo, but against my father. I was angry with him, for not knowing how to avoid Idek’s outbreak. That is what concentration camp life had made out of me”(Wiesel 52). These quotes represent dehumanization due to genocide because of the official definitions in 8 stages article and also the descriptive change in character Elie wiesel in the memoir…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Examples Of Dehumanization

    • 1212 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Adolf Hitler once said, “The jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human”. This quote was spoken during one of history's most dehumanizing eras, the Holocaust. Dehumanization is when one human or group of humans believes that they are more human than another group or person. Usually dehumanization takes place when one race, religion, or culture believes that another race, religion, or culture is not as human as themselves or not human at all. Dehumanization has unfavorably impacted the lives of many throughout history such as during the Holocaust, slavery, and the Rwandan Genocide.…

    • 1212 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dehumanization

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Dehumanization has been a central topic in discussions within various fields the modern society, from human rights and politics to university studies and daily news around us, but it has been specially discussed by writers and artists as one of the main causes of some of the most important and controversial stages of universal history. These stages include the fight against racism, slavery, sexism, cultural discrimination, etc. But for the purpose of this essay I will be focusing on one specific stage, or I should say historic event, involving dehumanization, that is still causing social indignation and is still being used as a central subject by many modern artists. It is the Holocaust.…

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Inhummanity in Night

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Six months into his dictatorship, Hitler began systematically stripping the Jews of their basic privileges and rights. The right to own land, hold health insurance, serve in the military, or seek legal counsel was all seized from Jewish life, (History). Thus leaving them homeless and with no-where to go. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie writes of how his family was thrown out of their homes and forced to like in cramped, dirty Ghettos. Hitler justified his actions against the Jews with his belief that Jewish people are inferior to the human race. Hitler used his beliefs to convince much of the German population that the Aryan race was pure and honorable. He believed the Jewish race…

    • 1249 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays