Night Essay Topic #3

John Reyes-Le’i
Mrs. Bosch
English 10 Honors
7 January 2009
Dehumanization of Jews
Throughout Night by Elie Wiesel, the Jews are clearly dehumanized by the Nazis to where there way of life is to a point of “survival of the fittest”. They are treated like dirt and they all are basically looking out for themselves to survive. In the exposition of the story, the Nazis arrive to the town yet make themselves seem as not a threat to the Jews. This event incorporates to the dehumanization of the Jews because the Nazis act as if they will not do anything and then at the right time, the Jews turn around to capture and torture the Jews. The Jews are dehumanized severely throughout Night by being evacuated from their homes, doing cruel and insane things to them, and by all the people turning against each other.
A huge role to the Jews being dehumanized is when they are evacuated from their homes. “All Jews outside! Hurry! The time’s come now… you’ve got to leave all this….” (Wiesel 13). They were told to be taken out of their homes and separated from each other. They had to leave all their belongings, even the items that have a lot of value. The Jews were then numbered instead of the Nazis remembering their names and threatened if missing. “‘There are eighty of you in this wagon,’ added the German officer. ‘If anyone is missing, you’ll all be shot, like dogs….’” (Wiesel 22). The Jews were then put into ghettos and then finally put into concentration camps where they stayed separated. Even some families would be separated from each other. “Men to the left! Women to the right!” (Wiesel 27).
Throughout the story, many different anomalies occurred to where this severely dehumanized the Jews. An example of this was marking the Jews and putting a number on them instead of knowing their name. “The three “veterans,” with needles in their hands, engraved a number on our left arms. I became A7713. After that I had no other name.”(Wiesel 39). It is one to hurt the Jews but to torture is another. They would have them lay in the cold at night with no clothes to torture them. This was horrible. The Nazis tortured the children of the Jews and just did horrible acts to them. Babies!...those children in the flames”(Wiesel 30). I bet it would be horrible to see your child, especially the mother to see your child burning in flames right in front of you. Simply the Nazis left the Jews with absolutely nothing but memories. There was not even enough food they had for all of the Jews to survive. The whole story is just a big reflection of how the Jews were just treated badly and disrespected by the higher authority of the Nazi or German people.
Towards the end of the story, the Jews are dehumanized enough to the point where they turn against each other. An example of this is when the Nazis cut down on the Jew’s food portions or so-called “rations”. This selfish attitude of the Jews is even reflected by their young when their “Sons abandoned their father’s remains without a tear.” (Wiesel 87).The Jews now get to the point where they fight or even kill each other just for that small portion. Plenty of them become selfish to where they all just want all the food for themselves. Wiesel then starts to explain how the Jews just tend to fight for what they want even if it’s their own townspeople. Wiesel refers to the Jews as, “wild beasts of prey with animal hatred in their eyes; an extraordinary vitality had seized them, sharpening their teeth and nails. Men threw themselves on top of each other, stamping on each other, biting each other” (Wiesel 95). Wiesel shows how the Jews are turning into human beasts by their inhumane treatment such as starvation and exhaustion. Another example is that the Jews then started to disrespect their own people after they had passed away. “‘Throw out all the dead! All the corpses outside!’…‘Here’s one! Take him!’ they undressed him, the survivors avidly sharing out his clothes” (Wiesel 94). They would give up the dead bodies and stripped them of their clothes and then left out in the middle of nowhere. Finally, even the main character and author, Elizer, betrayed his own friend. Moshe the Beadle, a man that he always looked up too, he just didn’t care. At the New Year's Day, while everyone prayed, he rebelled inside his mind, as he thought "why should I bless Him, who chose us from among the races to be tortured day and night, to see our fathers...end in the crematory?"(Wiezer64)
As shown above, the Jews have severely been dehumanized by the Nazis. They were evacuated from their homes, separated from their friends and family, tortured, and worst of all, because of being dehumanized; they turned away from friendship and fought with their only allies. It was basically one man for him to survive in the concentration camps, “Survival of the Fittest” at its best. The Jews traded on their own people just by being brainwashed by these Nazis and forgot the best thing in life that friendship is strong. None of this catastrophe would have happened if the Nazis did not trick the Jews from the beginning by acting as if they were good people, but then turning on them and doing all the horrible things that they did.






Work Cited
Wiesel, Elie. Night. 25th ed. New York: Hill & Wang, 1960.