Dehumanization In Elie Wiesel's Night
“Which is worse? Killing with hate or killing without hate?” –Elie Wiesel. One of the most prominent themes in the novel Night is the topic of dehumanization. Throughout the Holocaust the Jews suffered the act of dehumanization, or being deprived humane treatment. From the beginning the Jews were forced to endure the horrible conditions of the Ghettos. They were killed by the thousands in the gas chambers. And some even faced wrath of Dr. Mengele and his torturous experiments.
The Ghettos were temporary housing provided by the German government, used as a barrier between the Jews and the rest of the population. The living conditions were miserable. For example, Warsaw, the largest Ghetto, housed over 400,000 Jews but only covered 1.3 square miles. Usually the houses were very small and filled with multiple families. The law enforced strict curfews and laws resulting in death if broken. The housing was filthy and unsuitable for adequate living, which usually resulted in large numbers of death by disease. The Nazis saw the Jews as inferior and treated them like animals. The Ghettos emphasized how much the Jewish people were affected by dehumanization. If the Jews survived the Ghettos they …show more content…
were transported throughout Europe to concentration camps. Here the common fate of the prisoners was the gas chambers and eventually burn in the black smoke of the crematoriums. The Jews were killed by the thousands in the gas chambers just like pigs are killed in a slaughterhouse. Here they were striped of their clothing and moved to a large room. A poisonous gas would fill the room and eventually suffocate everyone in the room. The Nazis would preform this cycle multiple times a day as if it were a normal job. The Nazis were desensitized and didn’t see their actions as wrong.
Some of the darkest things happened behind the curtains.
Dr. Mengele was the Chief Physician at Auschwitz. He was known for preforming gruesome, inhumane experiments. He had a strange fascination with Heterochromia, or having two different colored eyes, and was trying to understand the secret of artificially changing eye color. His victims were twins, usually children. He was legally allowed to maim and kill them in order to obtain information therefore he collected their eyes and kept them as “research material”. His experiments were extremely painful and usually killed the patient. This is a perfect example of the horrible things that went on at the concentrations camps. No normal human could do something so evil, yet Dr. Mengele was so dehumanized he could do it with
ease.
The Ghettos were temporary housing provided by the German government, used as a barrier between the Jews and the rest of the population. The living conditions were miserable. For example, Warsaw, the largest Ghetto, housed over 400,000 Jews but only covered 1.3 square miles. Usually the houses were very small and filled with multiple families. The law enforced strict curfews and laws resulting in death if broken. The housing was filthy and unsuitable for adequate living, which usually resulted in large numbers of death by disease. The Nazis saw the Jews as inferior and treated them like animals. The Ghettos emphasized how much the Jewish people were affected by dehumanization. If the Jews survived the Ghettos they …show more content…
were transported throughout Europe to concentration camps. Here the common fate of the prisoners was the gas chambers and eventually burn in the black smoke of the crematoriums. The Jews were killed by the thousands in the gas chambers just like pigs are killed in a slaughterhouse. Here they were striped of their clothing and moved to a large room. A poisonous gas would fill the room and eventually suffocate everyone in the room. The Nazis would preform this cycle multiple times a day as if it were a normal job. The Nazis were desensitized and didn’t see their actions as wrong.
Some of the darkest things happened behind the curtains.
Dr. Mengele was the Chief Physician at Auschwitz. He was known for preforming gruesome, inhumane experiments. He had a strange fascination with Heterochromia, or having two different colored eyes, and was trying to understand the secret of artificially changing eye color. His victims were twins, usually children. He was legally allowed to maim and kill them in order to obtain information therefore he collected their eyes and kept them as “research material”. His experiments were extremely painful and usually killed the patient. This is a perfect example of the horrible things that went on at the concentrations camps. No normal human could do something so evil, yet Dr. Mengele was so dehumanized he could do it with
ease.