Night Dehumanized Essay

Sean Williams
Mrs. Whiddon
10/3/12
4th Block Throughout History, people have studied about the Defense of human rights, and how they tied to the book Night. There are many excerptions from Night that violates the Articles of the Constitution. There are many explanations of why it happened. Many false accusations of articles were displayed throughout the story. Jews were dehumanized in this story and it proves it and shows how. Everyone in this book suffered some kind of pain or either suffered or died. Article 1 of the constitution states that, “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” In Night however, this wasn’t the case. Millions of Jews were held captive in concentration camps in Auschwitz. They were forced against their own free will (rights). Most were tortured, or either killed. Only few survived this madness. Take Moshe the Beadle for example. Moshe was a man of work at a Hasidic Synagogue. He was very poor, but a man of his word, and strived to do his best. Elie’s father thinks his son is too young to learn Kabbalah, and
that Kabbalah isn’t something that Elie should spend his time on. He keeps saying to his son, "There are no Cabbalists in Sighet." Moshe the Beadle sees Ellie crying while praying at the synagogue, and they have a kind of connection. They ended up talking most evenings at the synagogue.
Eliezer confides in Moshe his desires to learn Kabbalah, and to Elie’s surprise, Moshe knows all about Kabbalah and starts to teach him. Then one day, the Hungarian police expelled all the foreign Jews from Sighet. Moshe the Beadle is actually a foreigner, so he and the others like him are packed into train cars like cattle. The Jews of Sighet think it’s a shame that the foreigners are carted away, but quickly forget, clearly not seeing this as a warning for their own futures. When Moshe returned no one believed the stories he told about his time captured. In article 2 of the constitution, it says “No distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, origin (social), property, birth.” Night has a distinct way of approaching race/discrimination. Race was a big issue between Jews, Nazis (incl. Adolf Hitler) and Russians. The Nazis held the Jews in concentration camps. During this time, the Russians (The Red Army) were planning to go to war with the Nazis. Adolf Hitler perhaps, seemed to be scared to go to war with Russians. He made the Jews go marching or a journey rather. This was the last night the Jews would ever spend in Buna under Nazi command. This journey was very critical for the Jews though. For 1, it was below freezing temperature and the season winter. If you slowed down or showed signs of slowing up you were either shot by the guards or ran over by the other prisoners. Upon this journey many things happened.
Jews were killed and trotted on. They also froze to death and became very sick and weak. Many of them had to start having a mindset of surviving for the fittest. They started thinking of themselves instead of their family and others like Rabbi Eliahou (the rabbi of a small Polish community, very good man, and was loved by everyone in the camp). His son had wanted to get rid of him. Rabbi Eliahou’s son had talked to Elie and told him how he had left his father because he saw him losing ground, limping, staggering to the back of the column. He tried to get as far ahead of his father as he could because he felt it was the end was near for him. Elie on the other hand wasn’t going to be self-centered. He kept pushing his dad until his dad just couldn’t survive anymore. The significance of this chapter is Elie’s fathers’ death. He died on the night of January 28,
1945. Furthermore then describing all this horrifying madness in Night, people in the world should have their rights. No one should suffer what the Jews went through in this story. This was just by law unruly and unlawful. Since there weren’t any rules back then, and they were run by a leader then I guess they believe it was an exception. It wasn’t any exceptions to what they were put through. They suffered, they had to watch their family and friends suffer and die. Some of them themselves even died. The U.D.H.R. should have been made way before the existents of the occurrence of the things that happened.
In conclusion the book Night, written by Elie Wiesel was a significance of why we need rights and laws in the world. People today can’t do things like they did in Night. If they even attempt to do something that crazy they could be tried in court and the punishment can be terrifying. No 1 can commit as many crimes and break as many laws as the people did throughout the story.