Dehumanization In The Book Night By Elie Wiesel
What makes humans different from all other animals and machines? Humans have feelings, have hopes, and have awareness of our own identities. However, in history, some groups have targeted other groups based on their collective identity. Therefore, wars and violent clashes have occurred between opposing groups. In the history of Germany, the hatred against the Jews caused them to carry out a widespread genocide. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, the German’s hatred for the Jews led them to subject the Jews to a cruel process of dehumanization during the Holocaust. As one stage of this dehumanization process, the Jews were ordered to do many things that resulted in the disappearance of their identity. The German soldiers took away their
Jewish names and replacing them, as Elie said, with “tattooed numbers on our left arms, I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name” (42). This showed that once his name was removed, Elie suddenly felt disconnected from his previous identity. Furthermore, by showing that the Jews were only differentiated with a barcode, Wiesel showed that to the Nazis, there weren’t any difference between an object at the grocery store and the Jews.
Jewish names and replacing them, as Elie said, with “tattooed numbers on our left arms, I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name” (42). This showed that once his name was removed, Elie suddenly felt disconnected from his previous identity. Furthermore, by showing that the Jews were only differentiated with a barcode, Wiesel showed that to the Nazis, there weren’t any difference between an object at the grocery store and the Jews.