Jews Dehumanized in Night by Wiesel

Dehumanization is the process of turning a person or persons into an object or an evil existence. This a process that took place during the holocaust; the Naxis took such actions against the Jewish population. The actions of dehumanizing the Jews helped Hitler almost completely achieve his goal. When reading the autobiography of Elie Wiesel, Night, we follow him to three different concentration camps and read, in gruesome detail, the brutality he, his father, and fellow prisoners faced. The brutality and disrespect they experienced unwillingly turned these men into nothing but objects that needed to be exterminated.

When Elie Wiesel was only fifteen years old strangers came into his home town and evacuated them, he was taken to a less desirable place to live that was commonly known as the ghettos. He was forced to wear a star that labeled him of Jewish religion (page 11- night). Soon they were forced to move out of there new homes and leave all their valuables behind, even things that were important to them (page 14- night).

No one truly admitted to themselves something was wrong but this was the beginning of the process of dehumanization. The process is very sneaky, one does not notice what is happening until the very last minute. One that was being dehumanized during the holocaust slowly had people turned against them and then every connection to the past, family, and religion was taken away (http://holocaustcenterpgh.org/). Which is why when the Jewish people were collected and sent to different camps and ghettos they were not allowed to bring anything valuable.

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If these people did not have anything connecting them to history or life they were no one, they did not matter anymore.

The way some Nazi men addressed their prisoners was almost robotic and others would just scream insults at them. They made them stand outside in the hot sun without food, water, nor mercy. Children cried to their mothers for water and comfort, while their mothers felt helpless (page 16 & 19 – night). Then Elie Wiesel and his family was brought to the notorious concentration camp Auschwitz; he and his father were sent to the left and his baby sister and mother to the right (page 29- night). Elie Wiesel never saw his mother nor his baby sister ever again. Elie Wiesel and his father were sent to work in factories during their time at Auschwitz as well as the other two camps they were sent to. Everyone collected at the concentration camps were forced to strip naked in the cold and have their heads shaved (page 35- night). While they were beaten they were forced to run outside in the cold to another barrack where they were given poorly fitted clothing (page 36 -night). The Nazis ordered them around as if the Jews were dogs, the Jews were now seen as nothing but a nuisance. The Nazis had all gold teeth removed from their prisoner’s mouths without proper equipment. Elie was forced to watch his father get beaten in silence and vice versa (page 39 & 57- night).

Elie Wiesel knew the Nazi men did not see him nor anyone that was not on the Nazi side as a human being. “Let them know that here lived men and not dogs”, when Elie Wiesel heard his commander tell him and his peers this he was surprised his response to this was the simple sentence “So we were men after all” (page 84- night). At that point in the autobiography he did not see himself as a human being and neither did most of the people surrounding him. Even though their leader called them men for the first time in a while, they were treated like dogs and forced to run and walk many miles to a new camp. Anyone that stopped or fell behind was either trampled or shot. Elie Wiesel knew he was not seen as a human and those words spoken to him and his fellow prisoners by their commander felt like a joke.

I have no doubt in my mind that Elie Wiesel and any prisoner of the holocaust were seen as human. I think that dehumanizing the Jews made it easier for the people in charge of killing and imprisoning. If one does not see the other as human, then it would be easier to damage and destroy them. The process of dehumanization definitely made it easier for Hitler to complete his goal because with everyone on his side, he was powerful. Hitler was so manipulative and dynamic that he gained support easily and with people willing to listen to him it was easy for him to convince his followers that the Jews were evil. Hitler started the dehumanization of the Jews; because the Jews were seen as evil in the publics eyes, making them look the part, [dirty and poor] made the genocide of them significantly easier. I feel sympathy for any person that was a prisoner in the holocaust, no human being deserves to suffer through that. I strongly believe that Elie Wiesel will never truly have his full self-respect again nor any person that experienced the same trauma. To be dehumanized is a horrible thing that could happen to anyone; the Nazis definitely deserved the punishments that came to them later in life.