Night Essay

Brenda Van Riper
Bosch
Honors English 10
18 December 2008

Dehumanization

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie, his father and his fellow Jews experience dehumanization. Dehumanization is to deprive of human qualities or attributes. The Jews in the concentration camps, in Germany during World War II, was gradually reduced the Jews too little more than "things" which was a nuisance to the Nazis. The Nazis dehumanized Elie, his father, and his fellow Jews to little more than “things” by going through the selection process, treating them like cattle in the train carts, and calling them by number and not name.

Generally, most people would like to be treated like people and not just “things.” For the Jews of Sighet they wanted to be treated like people, but they were dehumanized by the Nazis to little more than "things." During the selection process the SS team would see who is fit to continue working and who is not, the Jews who were not fit to continue working would be shot and then cremated. This is depriving them of human qualities because they should be able to be as weak or as strong as they choose to look and be as athletic as they want or do not want. Along the way the SS would always threaten to shoot anyone if they did one thing wrong. Or they would threaten to hit them like they did Elies father because he could not march correctly and one of the members knew that it would get under Elies skin. They pick and choose which people they would like to keep, as if they were chicken or cattle. This dehumanizes the Jews of Sighet by treating them like they are animals, picking the strong from the weak, and killing off the weak ones with no mercy. How could they expect the people to pass the selection process with how they mean they are to them, how they were fed, and the overall the beatings and other violent things that happened to them in the camp. That slims down the process, the ones who could not take beatings from the SS, would be terminated. Elie was beaten once, and also got whipped on his back, and they put him through a selection process when he is injured most likely, he could be sore, or have internal damage, and they pick and choose which one they want, luckily he made it though the process of selection. It is not fair and it is dehumanizing, the Jews of Sighet were reduced down to little more than “things” by going through the selection process that the goes on in the camp.

Furthermore, the Jews of Sighet were transported from the Ghetto to Auschwitz in a train cart. This cart was filled with people, so many Elie could not move, or lay down. They all must stand in order to sleep or do anything they wish to do. This is depriving them of their human qualities because they are closed inside there for a long time without being able to sit or sleep because they have to stand. They also have to go to the bathroom in the same train box. One time they beat a woman named Madame Schachter because she would not be quite because they were so cramped in this little cart. They were in this cart like a herd of cattle; they had no restrooms or anything. Their was no food, other that what they brought which was gone in a few days. On another train ride, people would throw bread into the carts just to watch people fight over it like savages. One time “A piece fell into our wagon. I decided that I would not move. Anyway, I knew that I would never have the strength to fight with a dozen savage men!” (Wiesel 95) The woman who threw this piece of break in caused a son to kill his father, and the son to be killed by other savage men fighting over the bread. It is as if that woman wanted to see a cockfight, two chickens or in this case people, fight over a piece of bread. This is dehumanizing to the Jews by throwing them food like they were caged animals at a feeding zoo. At stops along the way people who would die in this cart would be thrown out at one of the stops, like they were pieces of garbage, and they were to the people who ran the camps. Elies father almost got thrown out because he would not wake up, but in the end he woke up. Elies main support through the whole book is his father. This is reducing the Jews to little more than “things” because it is as if they are not human and no more than “things” in the carts to their next destination.

Lastly, the Jews were dehumanized by the Nazis to little more than “things” by getting called by number and not name. All the people in the concentration camp had numbers, it was engraved in their arm with a needle. Elie says, ”I became A-7713. After that I had no other name.” (39) This has torn their identity; they are now no one, just a number. Being known as a number can effect how a person sees himself or herself. Going through this experience cost Elie to lose faith in everything. This is dehumanizing because it shows they are not treated like people and not given their own names to be called by, they are just numbers. The SS and the other people who worked at these concentration camps had names, and were called by name, but not the Jews, they were just called by number, which is dehumanizing because it shows that the Nazis don’t care. They Nazis could care less if they learned all the names because they thought that Jews should be excluded from society. Also because taking away their name is taking away an attribute, which in the definition of dehumanization, to deprive human qualities or attributes, therefore this is dehumanizing to call someone by number and not name because it is depriving them of attributes.

Therefore, the Nazis dehumanized the Jews of Sighet by reducing them down to little more than “things.” They did this by going through the selection process like they were animals, separating the weak from the strong and discarding the weak to the cremator. Also treating them like cattle in the train carts keeping them cooped up in their for days at a time. Lastly, calling them by number and not name, which has torn their identity.

Cite
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Twenty-fifth. Perma-Bound, 1960.