Loss of Faith and Dehumanization in Night The word holocaust originates from the Latin words from ‘holos’ meaning whole and ‘kaustos’ meaning burned. The name holocaust was rightfully given to Hitler’s Final Solution plan which called for the extermination of more than six million Jews. In 1933 the plan was put into action and forced millions of Jews, gypsies, and others into concentration camps. Eli Wiesel, holocaust survivor and Noble Peace Prize winner, shares horrific experiences of his time spent in concentration camps. In his memoir Night, Wiesel recalls the treatment of himself and other prisoners. Eli Wiesel writes about his struggle to keep his faith in the face of the dehumanizing tactics of the Nazis. Throughout the book, it becomes …show more content…
Prisoners were starved, beaten, and forced to witness horrific scenes. After being forced to work all day, the only food prisoners would receive was a small bowl of thin soup and maybe a piece of bread. Many died from the combination of starvation and exhaustion before they could be executed. Upon arriving at his first camp, Wiesel comments about how the first thing he notices is the stench of burning flesh. He States, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, which would turn my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget those faces of little children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky” (Wiesel 32). After only one day however, it is understandable that even the most devoted faithful man lose his faith in light of these …show more content…
Buna, a part of Auschwitz system, is a labor camp. Once they arrived at the new camp they were immediately separated into blocks; Eli and his father were placed into the orchestra block. The Kapo in Charge of the Wiesel’s block, Idek, was a rather short tempered and cruel man. It was not unusual for Jewish prisoners to be on the receiving end of Idek’s uncontrollable rage. However, when Eli’s father seems to be the perfect scapegoat, Wiesel does nothing. He describes the horrific memory, At first my father crouched under the blows, then he broke in two, like a dry tree struck by lightning, and collapsed. I watched the whole scene without moving. I kept quiet. In fact I was thinking of how to get my father away so that I would not be hit myself. What is more, any anger I felt at that moment was 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 me. (Wiesel
In chapter six of Night, many visual images create a distinctive picture in the head of the reader. These images dehumanize the prisoners and allow the reader to gain a deeper understanding of Elie’s mentality. To begin, one of these images describes the Jewish people while they are being forced to run. Throughout this passage, Wiesel compares them to machines. For instance, he once states, “I was putting one foot in front of the other, like a machine” (Wiesel 85).
In his award winning book “Night” Elie Wiesel gives his first hand account of the terrors of the holocaust and Nazi Germany. He goes through to explain the injustices that happened to him and the rest of the jewish people living in europe at this time, telling of the horrid dehumanization of a whole race and others targeted by the Nazi regime. Many of the horrors perpetuated by this group are in direct violation of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. One instance of violation shows up when the prisoners are explaining how buna used to be to Elie.
During 1944, Elie Wiesel was forced from his home to undertake a great trial, known by many as the Holocaust. After the grueling meat grinder, known by some as the Shoah, he had survived, and was able to write his experiences years after the event. In short, Wiesel wrote Night to remind people of the horrors and conditions he had experienced within the concentration camps. Years after the Holocaust occurs, Wiesel shows the harsh treatment on him and his peers, enforced by the Schutzstaffel, such as working with great starvation and tiredness. The writing reveals the feelings of oppressed; starved; weakening men under the rule of fascist Nazis.
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world”. (P.Farmer). In the terrible and sickening memoir Night, written in 1954 by Elie Wiesel. Night is a very accurate representation of how poorly the Jewish people were treated during the Holocaust. Innocence is the state, quality, or fact of being innocent of a crime or offense.
In front of the iron doors at Auschwitz, there is a description that work makes you free. The German propaganda proclaims that working at the camps is not confinement, but liberty. The Nazis initially gave the prisoners a choice between labor or death. Wiesel employs irony in this situation because the Jews did not have a real option. When the SS officials were told to liquidate the concentration camp in Buna, the Nazis sent the prisoners to the crematorium and did not give them food despite how much they worked.
Night, an autobiography that was written by Elie Wiesel, is from his perspective as a prisoner. The book focuses on Wiesel and his father experiencing the torture that the Nazis put them through, and the unspeakable events that Wiesel witnessed. The author, Wiesel, was one of the handfuls of survivors to be able to tell his time about the appalling incidents that occurred during the Holocaust. That being the case, in the memoir Night, Wiesel uses somber descriptive diction, along with vivid syntax to portray the dehumanizing actions of the Nazis and to invoke empathy to the reader.
Wiesel compares his barracks to hell. He says, “the barracks we had been made to go into was very long. In the roof were some blue-tinged skylights. The antechamber of Hell must look like this” (32). “My heart was about to burst.
Dehumanization is the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities, according to the dictionary. Throughout Night it shows a lot of dehumanization examples. It would take hours to name all of them. Some of the ways dehumanization was showed in Night was all of the abuse, having no identity except for a number, and the hunger they felt because they would only get one meal per day.
In fact, I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What's more, if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath? That was what life in a concentration camp had made me...(Wiesel 54). " Wiesel's final line shows how life within a
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the personal tale of his account of the inhumanity and brutality the Nazis showed during the Holocaust. Night depicts the story of a young Jew from the small town of Sighet named Eliezer. Wiesel and his family are deported to the concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He must learn to survive with his father’s help until he finds liberation from the horror of the camp. This memoir, however, hides a greater lesson that can only be revealed through careful analyzation.
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer Wiesel narrates the legendary tale of what happened to him and his father during the Holocaust. In the introduction, Wiesel talks about how his village in Seghet was never worried about the war until it was too late. Wiesel’s village received advanced notice of the Germans, but the whole village ignored it. Throughout the entire account, Wiesel has many traits that are key to his survival in the concertation camps.
The memoir written by Elie Wiesel, Night, is illustrating the Holocaust, the even which caused the death of over 6 million Jews. Auschwitz, the concentration camps, is responsible for over 1 million of the deaths. In the memoir Night, Wiesel uses the symbolism of fire, and silence to clearly communicate to the readers that the Holocaust was a catastrophic and calamitous event, and that children should never be involved in warfare. Elie Wiesel enters Auschwitz at the age of 15, and witnesses’ horrific events as a prisoner in Auschwitz, including the deaths of numerous children, and the beating and death of his own father. All these inhumane things were done just because Adolf Hitler wanted to cleanse the German society of the Jews.
They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it”; in the camps the prisoners existed, but with nothing to live for, which is a horrifying image (The Perils of Indifference 2). Infusion of these types of quotes, Wiesel can elicit uncomfortable emotions from the audience with these incredibly gruesome descriptions.
In which millions of Jews were innocently killed and persecuted because of their religion. As a student who is familiar with the years of the holocaust that will forever live in infamy, Wiesel’s memoir has undoubtedly changed my perspective. Throughout the text, I have been emotionally touched by the topics of dehumanization, the young life of Elie Wiesel, and gained a better understanding of the Holocaust. With how dehumanization was portrayed through words, pondering my mind the most.
No mercy In the book, Night, Elie wiesel tells the story of his many months in the concentration camps. At the young age of fifteen were he saw, his fellow jews get burned alive, shot, beaten, Starved and even hung. There was so much physical pain that was caused and some of it could be fixed over time. But the one thing that can 't be fixed is the emotional damage him and every other person that was in those camps experienced.