Informative Essay Throughout World War ll the Jewish people were subjected to many levels of hate such as dehumanization, murder, and genocide. Elie Wiesel is a 15-year-old Jewish boy from Sighet, who survived the Holocaust. He is religious and rather learn about his religion than play like other kids. The story takes place during World War ll in 1944. Elie is forced to move to the ghettos, then send to Auschwitz-Birkenau to work as forced labor. The living conditions are horrible, and many Jews are murdered. After the Death March to near capital of Germany, his father died of illness. Later on, Elie was released in 1945. The Pyramid of Hate shows how small acts of hate can escalate to ultimate hate. Elie’s experience during the Holocaust …show more content…
In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel experiences an escalation of hate and violence that show how in specific circumstances dehumanization can progress to murder and ultimately lead to genocide. In the beginning of the novel, Wiesel experiences acts of prejudice in the form of dehumanization. At this point in the novel, Elie and other Jews are being dehumanized in the concentration camp. “The three ‘veterans,’ with needles in their hands, engraved a number on our left arms. I became A-7713. After that I had no other name.” (51). Elie describes the process of losing his name. It illustrates how the Jews turned from people with names and feelings to objects with numbers. This makes the Nazis easier to process the killings, to not have respect nor grief for the Jewish people. The author’s description of acts of prejudice is powerful because it shows that dehumanization can lead to something even worse. As his life progresses, the acts of prejudice soon escalate to violence as depicted through murder. At this point, the Jews are fighting each other to death for some bread in the train, fed by the “audience,” who are enjoying this horrifying scene. “Soon, nearly everywhere, pieces of bread were being dropped into the wagons. The audience stared at these skeletons of men, fighting one another to death for …show more content…
The Germans see Jews as not important, not human, and without feelings. They treat Jews as hungry wild animals that would do anything for food. The author’s description of Jews killing each other for a piece of bread shows how acts of prejudice can escalate to murder. As he nears the end of his time in the concentration camp, the violence create environment that makes genocide possible. In the end of the story, Jews are being shipped out of the blocks and murdered. “Every day, several thousand prisoners went through the camp gate and never came back” (118). Elie describes the mass murders in the end of the novel, It illustrates how acts of prejudice to violence can lead to genocide. Jews were first not recognized as human, then murdered, to as last extermination. Acts of Prejudice helped the Nazi’s build up their ruthlessness leading to killing all Jews without hesitation. Elie’s description of the Holocaust is effective in revealing how things can escalate quickly in the Pyramid of Hate to the worst. Dehumanization can process to violence and ultimately lead to genocide, if not stopped in the low levels of the Pyramid of Hate. Elie describes his experience
The Nazi army dehumanized the Jewish people by depriving them of love. Elie, along with most of the other people in the camps, aren’t really accepted socially by anyone. They weren’t accepted as a person, and no one even knew them by their names; furthermore, they were known by the number they had tattooed on their arms. On page 42, Elie says “I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.” By having their names taken away, the Jewish people had their social acceptance stripped from them. Also, their families were taken away from them, and they had to do whatever they could to stay with them. As Elie said on page 30, “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone.” By separating the Jews from their families, they lost the love from them. By depriving the jews of social acceptance and their families, they hardly felt any
At midnight on the third day of their deportation, the group looks at flames rising above huge ovens and gags at the stench of burning flesh. Guards wielding billy clubs force Elie's group through a selection of those fit to work and those who face a grim and improbable future. Elie and his father lie about their ages and depart with other hardy men to Auschwitz. Elie's mother and three sisters disappear into Birkenau, the death camp. After viewing infants being tossed in a burning pit, Elie is now against God, who remains silent. Elie and his father manage through all the pain and horrific sights and fight through it all. In the novel “Night” Elie Wiesel shows dehumanization in many occurrences throughout the book. Pg 13 “ The gestapo had threatened to shoot him if he talked.” Pg 36 “ He was weeping bitterly. I thought he was crying with joy at still being alive.” Pg. 53 “ Beating me in the chest, on my head, throwing me to the ground and picking me up again, crushing me with ever more
In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel depicts the steady escalation of dehumanization to which the Nazis subjected the Jews during the Holocaust and how it helped the Nazis crush the Jews’ spirits and justify their persecution and eventual genocide. Before the arrival of German soldiers, Wiesel and the other Jews of Sighet live in relative harmony with their Christian neighbors. But once the Nazis arrive, they steadily remove the Jews’ human rights until their fellow citizens no longer view them as human anymore. Thus, there is little action taken by the non-Jewish residents of Sighet when the persecutions and deportations begin. Additionally, the gradual pace of the dehumanization managed to convince the Jews that nothing significant was happening and that this was just a temporary phase that would soon pass. This could not be further from the truth. Once the Nazis finally issue the order to deport the Jews of Sighet, Wiesel notices that his neighbors’ spirits have been completely crushed: “There they went, defeated, their bundles, their lives in tow, having left behind their homes, their childhood. They passed me by, like beaten dogs, with never a glance in my direction. They must have envied me” (Wiesel 17). Wiesel describes his fellow Jews as downtrodden and defeated since they are now completely subject to the Nazi officers. The Nazis have stripped their rights, driven them from their homes, and treated them like animals. Being called and treated like animals, specifically
Throughout time, Jewish communities have been treated with immense hate and exclusion from other cultures because no one accepted their religion. Coming to the time before WWII, events like Kristallnacht demonstrated the despise for Jews that dwelled inside the general population of Germany when the Germans went to Jewish houses and stores to burn and destroy them. In the course of WWII, they were harassed, abused, tortured and ruined, as all of their business stocks and assets were taken away. During the expanse of this horrific battle, Jews were forced to live in designated areas known as concentration camps where they had to overcome obstacles such as hunger, freezing temperatures, and the loss of precious family members. These camps were used to fulfill Hitler’s intent to annihilate the Jewish population from the face of the planet and this dangerous idea was called “purify the country”. In total, there were about 25 of these camps built where 6 million Jews died, including 1.5 million children. Auschwitz was a camp which was responsible for 1 million deaths alone, and this is the camp where Elie Wiesel was first sent to endure the hatred of the Nazis. This camp changed the way Elie Wiesel viewed the world because he saw and experienced things that will stayed with him forever. He was transformed into a new person who neglected his religion, failed to protect the one he held dear to him, and put his
In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie gives us insight on his three-year long journey as a prisoner of the holocaust. He informs his readers that the Jewish community had to withstand the dehumanization brought upon by depraved Germans, deprived Jews, and the war inside of themselves. Elie relays his experiences, focusing on the dehumanization the Jewish population suffered from the Nazis through cruel punishments, and harsh epithets.
In chapter four, Elie Wiesel a metaphor to demonstrate how dehumanization causes victims to become emotionless. Wiesel states on page sixty-three “These withered bodies had long forgotten the bitter taste of tears.” This quotation demonstrates the effects of dehumanization on victims cause them to no longer be able to show emotions or even feel them. The use of the word long forgotten highlights how they had forgot what it was like to have emotions. This quotation demonstrates how the effects of dehumanization are not just physical they are also mental.
In the memoir Night written by Elie Wiesel explains his experience during the holocaust when Hitler wanted to kill all Jews and get rid of all disabled people. Wiesel struggles in the beginning of the book when Wiesel cares about keeping his father alive and staying together, despite the end of the book when he changed to then only caring about survival where if he had to choose who would stay alive him or his father he would choose himself and it wouldnt even hurt him. Due to all the dehumanization that Wiesel experience made him change the way he views the world because he only cares about himself he became selfish. The amount of dehumanization that victims experienced changed the way they view the world because as they get more dehumanization they worry less about their values.
Throughout the chilling memoir Night by Elie Wiesel we see a multitude of horrifying scenes. Elie was, in this book, tortured by the crushing actions of Nazi Germany. The entire Jewish population of Germany was targeted by Nuremberg laws created by Adolf Hitler, and each law aimed to dehumanize the Jews in one way or another. Elie Wiesel and other Jews were first labelled with yellow stars, then numbered, and by the end of it, they could barely recognize themselves. Chapter 6 page 83 says “We had forgotten everything-death, fatigue, our natural needs…., condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.” This quote exhibits dehumanization mainly in two words; “... mere numbers,...” These people were no longer people, they
Elie and other Jews were dehumanized in many ways like their name, feeling, etc. For example, “I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name” (pg.42). This quote proves that the Jews became “nobodies” when the Nazis stripped them of their names; they lost their self-image and the way others viewed them changed after they lost their names as well. According to the text, “I watched other hangings. I never saw a single victim weep. These withered bodies had long forgotten the bitter taste of tears.” (pg.63) This quote proves that they do not have any feeling even if they died, they didn’t even shed tears at all.
The Holocaust was a horrible event that treated people less than human. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night shows the dehumanization of the Jewish race during the Holocaust while violating most, if not all, of the rights of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights ( UDHR ) . The UDHR declares all the rights that every human being is inherently entitled to. By using Article five and thirteen of the UDHR one could see how horribly the Jews were tortured, their lack of freedom, and the pure dehumanization the prisoners of concentration camps had to go through.
First of all we’ll look at dehumanization in the book in general. Elie was deeply affected by this dehumanization. Dehumanization affected his personality and his appearance. “I became A-7713. From then on I had know other name.” (Wiesel 42). His name being changed to a number proves dehumanization. Next is his father. He was also affected by this.”My father was beaten…”(Wiesel 39) This proves dehumanization because his father was beaten. The last dehumanization is the novel is the other Jews. They were affected and have other stories like Elie’s.” We were naked…”(Wiesel 36) The other Jews were not treated like humans. All of this dehumanization changed Elie’s identity.
As the memoir progresses, Elie felt as his humanity was being tested while battling through his own survival. Dehumanization is developed in Night through the Nazi’s disregard of the Jews humanity, the awful,
It is said that dehumanization is not a given destiny, but a result of violence from oppressors. During the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler aspires to dehumanize the Jews. In Eliezer Wiesel's novel Night, he details his experience as a victim of Hitler's treacherous crimes. In order to achieve his goals, Hitler employs physical abuse, mental torture, and embarrassment to his advantage.
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”Elie Wiesel said this in his speech after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. We must know how to take sides to help us be the voice for all of these people that have been silenced due to dehumanization. The Holocaust was a genocide during World War II in which Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany systematically murdered some seven million European Jews. Elie Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor who chose to be the voice and advocate for people who have been dehumanized. He wrote the Night Trilogy, where he spoke of his experiences and the aftermath. The text addresses the topic of dehumanization, and how this has happened to Wiesel. Night, by Elie Wiesel, used personal experience from the
Hate begins to grow, and in the case of the Holocaust, this incessant hatred led to the identification of all Jews, the deportation of millions of people from their homes, the concentration in the camps, and extermination of entire families and communities at once. For nearly a decade, Jews, prisoners-of-war, homosexuals, and the disabled were rounded up, sent off to camps, and systematically slaughtered in unimaginably inhumane ways. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, shares his experiences at Auschwitz in the book Night, which reveals the true extent of inhumanity in both the Nazis and the Jews. In Elie Wiesel’s Night, Wiesel uses imagery of his experiences before and while being in the concentration camp in order to develop his theme of dehumanization of both the Jews and the Nazis during the Holocaust.