Examples Of Dehumanization In Night

Words: 499
Pages: 2

Dehumanization in Night

Dehumanization is to deprive a person or group of human attributes, qualities, and personality; which the Nazis were effectively able to do with only a series of numbers and letters. In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel explores his own experiences during the Holocaust and his transformation from a human being to A-7713.

To emphasize, the dehumanization tactics used by the Nazis in concentration camps were horrific. They aimed to reduce prisoners to little more than cattle to be slaughtered. In various means throughout chapters two and three of Night we bear witness to these atrocities. The most significant of these dehumanization tactics appear on page 42, "The three veteran prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name." In this single moment, Elie Wiesel ceases to be and instead is re-birthed as A-7713, or symbolically stripped of his humanity. After the prisoners are brought into the camp, systematically chosen for death and cataloged; they undergo a "transformation." Their heads are shaved, their clothes and personal belongings are
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When the prisoners are first brought into the camp, they are frightened, shocked, but still full of "hope." As the prisoners begin to lose their human qualities, they are effectively dehumanized. Another word for this, in the context of this memoir, could also be "veteran prisoner." Instead of still having compassion for other prisoners and their suffering, they treat others with utter indifference. As a reader, one see's Wiesel's transformation from a young man who cares deeply for his religion and family to a young man who watches passively as his father is beaten savagely. “I had watched it all happening without moving. I kept silent. I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows.” (Weisel