Preview

Dehumanization In The Book Night

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
506 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Dehumanization In The Book Night
Dehumanization happens all around the world and is overlooked by millions. When hearing the word “ genocide” many think about the Holocaust. To summarize, Dehumanizing was evident throughout World War Two but especially during the Holocaust. To begin, In the book Night, written by Elie Wiesel, Elie describes his experiences in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. In fact, The United nations crafted the Universal Declaration of Human rights after the second world war. Inhuman acts desecrated the conscience of mankind during the time, as a result, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was forged.

Although the UDOHR states that there must not be inhuman or cruel punishment and treatment, the Holocaust clearly crosses that line. As stated, “ crammed into cattle cars by the Hungarian police” (Wiesel 6). This violates the UDOHR because being “crammed into cattle cars” is an example of degrading treatment. Furthermore, the Jews to the SS officers were like cattle because cattle was later slaughtered for meat, just as the Jews were later killed. Another example of this, in the text, “Here and there, the police were lashing out with their clubs: ‘ Faster!”’ (Wiesel 19). This absolutely disobeys the UDOHR because it too
…show more content…
For example, “ they were forced to dig huge trenches,then later killed or left for dead” (Wiesel 6). To explain, the Jews were forced into labor by the Germans ,which violates the UDOHR. Since the SS officers had the power to do as they pleased, they gathered Jews to work without pay, later when the work was done, killing them or leaving them to die. When the author states, “The prisoners were forced to run from camp to camp, no matter if they grew tired” ( Wiesel 19). This violates the UDOHR because it shows the SS officers forcing the prisoners to surpass their limits of weariness, running ,essentially, for their

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Night is a heart pulling memoir of its young Jewish author, Ellie Weasel, and his experiences in the Holocaust. The book begins with him living in the town of Sighet. He had a very sheltered life, with no accounts of negativity in the world. He and his family were also raised heavily on Jewish beliefs. One day a man by the name of Moshe the beadle comes to warn the people of the dangers of the Nazis. Unfortunately the people did not heed this and Sighet was invaded by Nazis. Weasel and his family are taken and separated. He only had his father now and they braved much torture and mal treatment by the kapos in the camps. At the end of it all only weasel himself made it out alive, though a brutal scar was marked upon his soul. He’d lost his family and his faith at those camps. But through all his sorrow and loss he wanted to share his accounts in this dark volume of his life, so that people understand what the Jews went through all those years ago. This led him to write Night, where in which Weasel points out the inhumanity towards other humans during the holocaust as one of the themes of his chilling story.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The wars between the Axis Power and the Allied and the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan were usually what come into a discussion about World War II. Besides those events, the most horrific and considerably inhumane time was the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a period time during World War II, when Adolf Hitler launched a “movement” to kill all the Jews and anyone he deemed as lower than him in his territories. Most people now looked back at history around this time and believed that the SS and policemen killed the Jews because of brainwashing and forcing. But, in the book Ordinary Men, Christopher R. Browning argued that it was not the case. He argued that these police officers were ordinary men just like everybody else and they were not forced…

    • 136 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dachau's prisoners were physically and mentally disabled and homosexual. Most were used for slave labor, meaning that the prisoners were slaves. Being slaves wasn't the worst part in the holocaust. Some prisoners went through brutal experiments by the Nazis or doctors. The majority of the prisoners in the camp died.…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the book Night the main character Elie expensed many signs of dehumanization. Throughout the book the dehumanization gets worse. It goes from little things like not having a name to using people's hunger for amusement.…

    • 127 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The breaking of the human spirit is prevalent in all periods of history dating back to the beginning of time. There is an ongoing civil war of hatred that is prominent in humanity. Despite the obvious fact that all humans should have equal rights, people still deprive each other of these simple liberties. Such as during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a horrific event where Nazis humiliated and tortured people of minorities, especially those that identify as Jewish. These people were belittled to nothing besides worthless animals in the eyes of many. The behavior of the Nazis, and their treatment toward these humans are an extreme violation in relation to the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, he describes…

    • 623 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To be human is to have personality, unique characteristics, and freedom. The Nazis stripped Eliezer, his father, and other Jews of all these qualities. These people had families, owned businesses, and had values. Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazis turned Jews from people to piles of ashes. The Nazis physically, mentally, and spiritually reduced the Jews to nothing. Two of the things the Nazis did to dehumanize the Jews was cut their hair and take away their names.…

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For example, when Eliezer and the other Jews being shipped to the camp were crammed into small box cars, and given little food. When they arrived they were stripped of their clothes and stood in the cold, awaiting instruction. Consequently, the Jews had been completely stripped of their name, and Eliezer stated,” I became A-7713, from then on, I had no other name.” The Nazis stripped the Jews of what little bit of humanity they had left, their names. Inside the camps, their names were the least of their problems, and hunger became their lives. Indecently, they were only given a bowl of soup and a piece of bread daily, and were worked extremely hard and, in addition, were made to run around the camp or sit in cold mud. In one instance when Eliezer had stumbled upon Idek having intimate relations with a woman, which angered Idek immensely. Eliezer was later lashed for this and was lashed so severely that he could not walk or stand.…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At this level, Article 5 was also broken in this memoir. It stated that, “Nobody has the right to torture, harm, or humiliate you.” However, the actions of the SS officers and the head of the blocks in the concentration camp aren’t corresponding to this authority. In chapter 3, when Wiesel got in Idek’s way, he got beat up. He describes, “He leapt on me, like a wild animal, hitting me in the chest, on the head, throwing me down and pulling me up again, his blows growing more and more violent, until I was covered with blood.” Wiesel was aching all over, and such pain for a fourteen year old kid is unacceptable. You can’t just let your anger out on someone, especially if they respect you a ton. Physically abusing a person could lead to death and even though this book was published in…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Book Night Analysis

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the movie the Sobibor prisoners were in line for lunch and one of the guys was taking too long preparing the food so they beat him in front of everybody. But nobody got scared and they continued to get food. Another scene is when they were by the stream and a worker got tired and was beaten, the other workers just stared at the Gestapo. The Gestapos try to show the Jews what would happen to them if they were to disobey. The Jewish had it all planned out they make the Germans believe that they are cooperating. In the film Escape of Sobibor, there is a scene where German soldiers rush in a hut where a woman was living, but they didn't rush in there because they wanted to, they rushed in because she had something that wasn't allowed which was a baby. Babies weren't allowed in the camps because they couldn't work and they didn't have money for clothe and food. One of the soldiers grabbed the baby and the mother grabbed it from the other side. She was using her whole strength to keep hold of the baby. Another soldier had pushed her down to the floor, and the baby had flew to the ground and was shot to the head when it landed. The mother was crying hysterically, but that didn't change the way she thought. She still had the surviving mentality she never broke. Germans tried everything to traumatize the people but the methods they use were…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Nazis used dehumanization against the Jews. One example of how they dehumanized them, is they killed older, weaker, and sick people. Another example is they used infants as targets for marksman practice. And the last example is public beatings and killings. The Nazis did not care for the Jews and wanted to see them suffer. In Night, by Elie Wiesel, it explains how through the process of dehumanization that the Jews are being downgraded and turned into nothing.…

    • 522 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Elie heard this quote from a “French” women after his first beating from Idek. The French women was encouraging to survive and keep faith, so that one day Elie would be able to speak up for the Jews. When the quote states, “Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. The day will come but not now.” displays the silence that Jews had to live through to survive the camps. The quote conveys the theme of dehumanization because in order to survive the camps the Jews were forced to internalize everything they felt or risk being killed. Another theme conveyed was human morality, the women’s compassion and kindness towards Elie showed that even in times of extreme distress human kindness will prevail. Upon reading the quote, I knew that…

    • 168 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As a human, all of us are subject to the horrible beliefs of racism, sexism, and anti semitism . These beliefs are not accidents; they are the foundation of dehumanization. It is the little actions and beliefs that we have that influence how we dehumanize others. The most known example of dehumanization was the horrific planned extermination of the Jewish people by the National Socialist Workers Party(Nazi). They ingeniously realized how to kill a person without them resisting was to make them believe that they were not even human. In Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night, he paints a horrific picture of how the Nazis made the Jewish people believe and act as if they were not even human.…

    • 258 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout history, there have been many times when human rights have been violated, but none of them compare to the Holocaust. During the Holocaust, German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, homosexuals, and most of all, those of Jewish descent were herded and placed in work camps. The people’s basic human rights were violated when they were enslaved by the German Army. Article Four of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” states, “no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms” (United Nations General Assembly). Hitler’s final solution for the Jewish communities in Germany and its surrounding countries completely violated article four. In his novel, Night, Elie Wiesel describes his journey throughout the concentration camps in Europe and how Hitler’s Regime contravened his basic rights.…

    • 278 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For example, when a person was to escape a Jewish camp, everyone in the camp was punished for one person's deed. Similarly, in Residential Schools, it was common to make one student to do more work than other, even if she was not the one causing trouble. A sign of extreme abuse as punishment commonly used was the act of using their own people against them. In the story “Fatty Legs” it is shown that Olemaun Pokiak was forced to wear an article of clothing purposefully given to her to shame her by her Residential School teacher (who were nuns). It was also shown that the older students in the Residential Schools bullied the younger kids, usually for not knowing knowledge of English. In “Anne Frank” it was shown many times that in the Concentration Camps women and men worked for the camp, for extra food or shelter, even if they themselves were Jews. The First Nation and Jewish did get their cultures made to look like sins, and their own people turned against them in ways they thought not possible. Sadly, something else that was taken away from these people was their freedom. They were forced to stay in camps, forced against their religion and culture- forced assimilation and annihilation was something both…

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    When it comes to war the jus in bello must prevail or the humanitarian law. The UDHR only supplements the circumstance. Comparing to jus cogens , jus cogens is a level of law which will not be derogated in times of war or peace relating to international declaration of human rights it is clear that UDHR is not a jus conges because it is derogated via circumstance of armed conflict or terrorism. Going back to terrorism, the derogation of human rights via terrorism is new. It started in the bombing of the twin towers of America and constitute a lot of destruction because of that the United States derogate the human rights and wage war against terrorism. The war against terrorism is the new application of derogation of human rights in order to pay those…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays