Examples Of Dehumanization

Adolf Hitler once said, “The jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human”. This quote was spoken during one of history's most dehumanizing eras, the Holocaust. Dehumanization is when one human or group of humans believes that they are more human than another group or person. Usually dehumanization takes place when one race, religion, or culture believes that another race, religion, or culture is not as human as themselves or not human at all. Dehumanization has unfavorably impacted the lives of many throughout history such as during the Holocaust, slavery, and the Rwandan Genocide. During the Holocaust, dehumanization was the reason for the deaths of millions of Jews, Gypsies, Slavic people, the disabled, and others. For instance,
they treated the jews like animals, “Deportation and transportation to camps often took days. Individuals, families and whole communities together with their personal belongings were packed into cattle trucks. They were locked in and transported for days.”(Deportation, par. 1). Not only were living human beings crammed into little trucks with strangers and belongings like animals without the actual persons say, but the trucks they were put into were made for animals. They would not be given food for days, in addition to not being able to other everyday things such as going to the bathroom, sleeping would be very challenging, and even breathing. Another example is, Hippler, a German filmmaker during WWII produced a movie known as “The Eternal Jew”. During it’s creation Hippler had said “They were nothing more than parasites” and “In continuation with the spread of the Jews across the world, the next logical step for the film was to compare the Jews to rats.”(Nazi par.3) He believed that killing millions of Jews was justifiable,he regarded killing Jews as an equal to killing rats. Killing those the Nazis targeted was thought by some Nazis to be keeping the country “healthy and clean”. Hippler and many others who supported the Nazi revolution during WWII dehumanized the Jews, looking at them more as animals then as human beings. In addition to what I said before, they both thought of the Jews as animals, but also treated them with the same respect some may give animals. An article by USHMM about Forced Labor wrote, “The Nazis subjected millions of people (both Jews and other victim groups) to forced labor under brutal conditions.” Plus, from the same paragraph it described, “imposed without proper equipment, clothing, nourishment, or rest”(Forced par.1). They were forced to work like animals, worse than animals. They were treated like they were absolutely nothing and, not feeding them, clothing them, allowing them to stop and take a break. What they Nazi’s did was foul torture. The Holocaust has lead to dehumanization, treating the Jews and those of other races, religions, and culture as the living dead. A form of dehumanization at its worse. Along with the Nazi revolution, slavery was another of the world's most devastating times. A few hundred years of one race, in this case African Americans, being treated like lesser beings, an inferior race, obsolete to another. Onward, when America declared its independence, it meant the creation of something called the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is proof that America was and still is a country of its own. It wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”(Declaration par.2) It states that all humans have the same rights as all other humans, yet after this was published slavery was still not abolished. I do not like to think of it this way, but it is a valid argument. America’s founding fathers did not, when signing the Declaration of Independence, think of African Americans as humans. Another example is, slave owners “rewarded obedient slave behavior with favors, while rebellious slaves were brutally punished”(Slavery par.6). That's how humans train pets such as dogs and cats. We would yell at the dog, for instance, for standing on the table, but give them a treat for doing tricks and listening to the owner's commands. During the Slave Trade, slaves were put through brutal condition which could sometimes lead the slave into death, “Slaves suffered a variety of miserable and often fatal maladies due to the Atlantic Slave Trade, and to inhumane living and working conditions”(Facts par.18). Similar to the Holocaust, slaves were treated less than animals. Animals we would feed, we would allow to do what that want at times. The Slaves were ridden from all human rights. Slaves were believed to be nothing more than workers. People to do their owner's bids. They were treated as if they were living machines, machines with family, children, brothers, and sisters. Both the Holocaust and slavery were forms of dehumanization in which one race believes they are superior to another or that they believe the other race to not be human at all.
The Rwandan Genocide on the other hand is an example of dehumanization through culture. The Genocide led to the murder of 800,000 people. It was a genocide and one of 8 stages of genocide is dehumanization. An article written about genocide itself says, “One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder.” (Stanton par. 4) The Tutsi were treated like cockroaches needed to be exterminated, “Tutsi and people suspected of being Tutsi were killed in their homes and as they tried to flee at roadblocks set up across the country during the genocide.” (Genocide par. 2) The Hutu, another supposedly superior culture treated the Tutsi as rodents, germs, bugs. Things better fit not in society, take away from them all human rights and then killing them. This is one of the most horrible facts I have learned about dehumanization in history. An article in the bbc states that, “Neighbours killed neighbours and some husbands even killed their Tutsi wives, saying they would be killed if they refused.”(Rwanda par. 4) The idea of people killing people close to them is plain cruel. Especially for those who forced the killings. To do something like that they need not think of the person
there forcing wives as human, but just something not needed and worse with. The Hutu believed they were the superior culture and that all other cultures in rwanda were obsolete. What occurred during the Rwandan Genocide was one of the most disturbing forms of dehumanization in history. Gruesome things have come to our world because of dehumanization, millions and millions of deaths, millions and millions of people around the world suffering for survival.
Dehumanization, as I have already thoroughly explained, is not a good thing whatsoever. While we may see this as something of the past, it is still around today in many different forms. The police brutalities, slavery has been abolished yet in some places around the world it is still in operation and bigger than ever. Millions of families, neighbors, friends, and others have had their lives destroyed by dehumanization, and that is why we must be aware of how drastic the situation is so we can end it
together.