The Consequences Of Dehumanization During The Holocaust

The Consequences of Dehumanization

The actions committed during the Holocaust are, to many, unthinkable. Hitler and his followers have become merely fixtures of history, and the very idea that something like the Holocaust could happen again is often laughable. However, the Holocaust did not begin with widespread destruction, rather, it was a slow ascent into the horrors that we know of. This ascent began with the idea that the Jewish people were at fault for Germany’s economic collapse, yet finished with the deaths of millions of innocent people. The progressive dehumanization of the Jewish people and other marginalized groups led to both individuals and society being able to commit atrocities without a sense of moral wrongdoing.

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The first thing that is taken from them is their home. On page 22, “The Hungarian police made us climb into the cars, eighty persons in each one...A prolonged whistle pierced the air. The wheels began to grind. We were on our way.” This was both a culmination of the progressive segregation of society and a way to strip the Jewish people of their home, a source of comfort. When this was effectively removed, the next step was to remove any ties to it. On page 29, “The beloved objects that we had carried with us from place to place were now left behind in the wagon and, with them, finally, our illusions.” This event marks the divergence of the Jew’s old life and the life that they were forced into at this point. Sighet was not just a town to many of the Jews. It contained their hopes, dreams, and their way of life within it. The physical objects that they carried with them were reminiscent of that, and removing them severed all ties to the life that the Jews used to have. It is not enough to remove a place; you must remove all traces of it from their lives. On page 29, “In a fraction of a second I could see my mother, my sisters, move to the right. Tzipora was holding Mother’s hand. I saw them walking farther and farther away; Mother was stroking my sister’s blond hair, as if to protect her. And I walked on with my father, with the men.” At this point, family was essentially the only thing that the Jews had left. Forcing families to separate enforced the idea that the Jewish people were undeserving of these connections. This action had two ramifications: both on the Nazis and the Jews. The Nazis were able to use the Jews newfound lack of family to justify the horrors that they committed every day. These horrors are much harder to commit when you know that the person you are hurting has a family that they love. The isolation of individual Jews limited the consequences of the Nazis to that one