Elie Wiesel’s Memoir Night
Elie Wiesel’s Memoir Night
Fatima Zubedi
Miss Eastridge
English, Period 5
August 25, 2014
Night
In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, Wiesel explains the dehumanization of Eliezer, his family, and his fellow Jews throughout World War ll. Wiesel also describes how the people all throughout the memoir change from civilized humans to vicious beings with animal like behavior. The process of dehumanization starts when Eliezer and the rest of the Jewish community are evacuated from their humans in Sighet, then through the harsh treatments the Jews receive in the concentration camps, and finally when the Jews begin to turn against each other trying to survive the move from one camp to another towards the ending of World War ll.
The following signifies how the Jews were not able to keep any objects that had meaning to them, when the Hungarian police barged into Sighet, “A Jew no longer had the right to keep in his house gold, jewels, or any object of value” (Wiesel 18). Later they were forced tosit in crowded wagons that had no space to move about in. A German officer told the Jews,” There are eighty of you in this wagon,’ added the German officer. ‘If anyone is missing, you’ll all be shot, like dogs…” (Wiesel 22). This shows that they thought nothing of them. Instead the Germans compared the Jews to being like “dogs” or animals, which shows that the Jews weren’t capable of having the good qualities a human has.
The dehumanizing of the Jews was again displayed later on when Eliezer becomes a member of Block 17. Here Wiesel states, “Our clothes had been left behind in the other block, and we had been promised other outfits. Toward midnight, we were told to run.” (Wiesel 38). This dehumanized them because the Germans made the Jews run in the cold night air with no clothes on. This quote displays how the Germans saw Jews, needing no clothes, just like animals. Also at the Block Eliezer becomes dehumanized when he becomes