Vidad 1

Joei Vidad
Period 3
Literary Analysis
20 May 2015
Night: Dehumanization
Dehumanization means "to deprive of human qualities, personality, or spirit"
(Merriam-Webster.com). Night, by Eliezer Wiesel, is about a young boy who travels into
numerous concentration camps, along with his aging father. As Elie faces multiple trials,
he witnesses a diverse amount of victims lose their humanity little by little, because of
the Nazis. The book shows how the Nazis systematically dehumanized the Jewish
population to annihilate them and the existence of their culture and spirit.
One way the Nazis dehumanized the Jews was by treating them like animals.
During the book, approximately eighty Jews were packed tightly into the cattle cars with
only a limited amount of air, barely any room to stand up, and no one had any privacy.
The Jews were given only a limited amount of bread and a few pails of water to last
them the torturous journey (22). This example indicates how the Nazis never actually
thought of them as people because cattle cars are meant to be used for cattles. Another
example is when each Kapo began to choose the men they thought would be fit enough
to do forced labor, "They pointed their fingers, the way one might choose cattle, or
merchandise" (49). The way the Kapos treated them reveals how the Jews were nothing
but disposable choices. Also, the prisoners got tattooed numbers on their left arms (42).
From then on, they had no other name or even a sign of recognition to their past
identities. To the Nazis, the Jews were not people; they were property.

Vidad 2

The Yellow Star was another way the Nazis put the Jews to shame. The
Introduction of the Yellow Star helped organize and differ the Jews from the rest of the
population (State of Deception). The yellow star was also known as the Badge of
Shame. Jews were ordered to wear the badge on their outergarments, so it helped the
Germans indicate who was to be harassed or isolated from the rest (Wikipedia). The
star was intended to humiliate Jews and to mark them out for segregation and
discrimination. If a Jew was caught without a badge, he was fined, imprisoned, or shot.
This example reveals how the Nazis put the Jews to shame and mocked them for being
different from all the rest. The way the Nazis put Jews to shame caused many Jews to
question their culture and religion.
The Nazis considered the Jews to be less than human by treating them like
something to keep them occupied or entertained by, which caused the Jews to think
less of themselves. In the course of the book, Elie happened to cross Ideks (German
officer) path when he was venting his anger. Idek beat Elie up with ever more violent
blows, until he was covered in his own blood (53). This shows how the Nazi officers
considered the Jews to be just a form of matter that they could release their hatred on.
Another example was when a town worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and
threw it into the wagon, There was a stampede of men, fighting over just a few crumbs,
while the worker watched with great interest (100). This shows how the Nazis used the
Jews' desperation for survival to benefit for their own entertainment. The Jews were just
circus acts by which the Nazis were amused by and treated them like they were not
worthy of human treatment.

Vidad 3

The Nazis had dehumanized the Jews by depriving them from their own sense of
human qualities. By the end of Elies journey, he witnesses a son kill his own flesh and
blood, his father. More bread was being thrown into the cattle cars, and a father
managed to hide a piece of bread under his shirt. The son soon discovered about the
hidden bread and stunned the father with plenty of blows until the father was dead
(101). This shows how much the Nazis decreased the Jews' own sense of humanity.
The normal actions of a parent are to nurture their child and protect them from any type
of harm. The father in the book did the complete opposite and was willing to let his own
son starve to death, just as long as he himself had his own bite to eat. The son himself
deliberately killed his own father for a small portion of bread. The Nazis caused the
Jews to have reached the point to where they were killing each other.
Millions of Jews lost their lives to the cruel horror they were forced into, and
many Jews lost their humanity. Nearly all Jews were deprived of human treatment. Their
own knowledge of the differences between right and wrong was forever forgotten.
Because the Nazis treated them like animals, many became and acted like animals.
The Nazis systematically treated the Jews like they were less than human and
considered them to be nuisances. Little by little and day after day, each inhumane
action the Nazis committed, took a portion of a Jews own sense of humanity. We end
up doing the wrong things after we forget that they were wrong in the first place. So let
us not forget this tragic event and engrave the great horrors that the Jews faced, into
our memory, for it may take control and develop once again in our lifetime.

Vidad 4

Works Cited
State of Deception: The Introduction of the Yellow Star. (n.d.): 19-47. United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 11 April 2015.
<http://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20131127-Lesson1-Extension.pdf>.
Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a
Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.

Vidad 5

"Yellow Badge." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 19 May 2015.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_badge>.