Dehumanization: the Holocaust and Wiesel
Jacinda Ruzicka
Mrs. Jones
Advanced World Literature
7 April 2010
Dehumanization: Unimaginable...
No individual should ever be deprived of the basic essentials of human life: food, shelter, citizenship and a family to lean on. This hell, known as the Holocaust, became a reality for many. The Holocaust was the systemic genocide of over six million Jews during World War II. The unthinkable occurred all because of one man and his goal to create a super-race. That one man was Adolf Hitler. To Adolf Hitler and the Schutzstaffel or SS, the Holocaust was the "final solution" to the "Jewish problem", thus establishing a pure German race. Much of the brutal killings and torturous acts took place in the concentration camps. Concentration camps were used to confine millions of Jews as a group to be cleansed from the German nation. Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other groups of people considered undesirable according to Nazi principles, and anyone who opposed the government, were also placed in concentration camps. These prisoners were mostly beaten and killed in the matter of days just for being different. "When I came to power, I did not want the concentration camps to become old age pensioners homes, but instruments of terror." (Adolf Hitler). Wonder spurs just thinking about the capability of people and what they must have been thinking; not only the Nazis and how they treated the Jewish society, but how the Jews felt being under these conditions. Elie Wiesel speaks of his entire experience through the rough time that was the Holocaust in his world-famous novel, "Night". This novel illustrates the atrocity and ruthlessness of dehumanization moreover.
According to our societal standards, subjecting a human being to this unimaginable existence is considered dehumanization. This is the process by which a select group is degraded to unimportant, meaningless "things". Individuals are made to feel inferior and develop the mindset that they are nuisances to society.
Mrs. Jones
Advanced World Literature
7 April 2010
Dehumanization: Unimaginable...
No individual should ever be deprived of the basic essentials of human life: food, shelter, citizenship and a family to lean on. This hell, known as the Holocaust, became a reality for many. The Holocaust was the systemic genocide of over six million Jews during World War II. The unthinkable occurred all because of one man and his goal to create a super-race. That one man was Adolf Hitler. To Adolf Hitler and the Schutzstaffel or SS, the Holocaust was the "final solution" to the "Jewish problem", thus establishing a pure German race. Much of the brutal killings and torturous acts took place in the concentration camps. Concentration camps were used to confine millions of Jews as a group to be cleansed from the German nation. Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other groups of people considered undesirable according to Nazi principles, and anyone who opposed the government, were also placed in concentration camps. These prisoners were mostly beaten and killed in the matter of days just for being different. "When I came to power, I did not want the concentration camps to become old age pensioners homes, but instruments of terror." (Adolf Hitler). Wonder spurs just thinking about the capability of people and what they must have been thinking; not only the Nazis and how they treated the Jewish society, but how the Jews felt being under these conditions. Elie Wiesel speaks of his entire experience through the rough time that was the Holocaust in his world-famous novel, "Night". This novel illustrates the atrocity and ruthlessness of dehumanization moreover.
According to our societal standards, subjecting a human being to this unimaginable existence is considered dehumanization. This is the process by which a select group is degraded to unimportant, meaningless "things". Individuals are made to feel inferior and develop the mindset that they are nuisances to society.
Cited: "April 19, 1943 - Waffen SS Attacks Jewish Resistance in Warsaw." The History Place. Web. 07 Apr. 2010. <http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/warsaw.htm>. "Holocaust Quotes." The Meanings and Origins of Sayings and Phrases | List of Sayings | English Sayings | Idiom Definitions | Idiom Examples | Idiom Origins | List of Idioms | Idiom Dictionary | Meaning of Idioms. Web. 07 Apr. 2010. <http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/holocaust-quotations.html>. Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam, 1982. Print.