Adolf Hitler, leader of the fascist Nazi party, seized power in Germany during early 1933. Almost immediately after, they began scapegoating Jewish people, blaming them for the problems Germany faced after World War I. On April 1st of the same year, a national boycott of Jewish owned businesses was announced. In the weeks that followed, legislations were passed forcing Jews out of civil services. This was part of Hitler’s larger plan to exterminate all Jewish people from Germany and German-controlled territories. Throughout Elie Wiesel’s Night, the Jewish population is slowly stripped of their rights, and thus their humanity.
The Jews first begin to be stripped of their humanity in their hometown of Sighet, Transylvania. Moshe the Beadle, a …show more content…
In fact, editor David Peck states that “after a death march and brutally cruel train ride… Wiesel and his father arrive at Buchenwald” (Wiesel 713). The so-called “death march” takes place traveling between Buna and the train that will eventually deliver them to Buchenwald. The already weak prisoners are forced to hike hundreds of miles in the snow. Those who are unable to keep up are either trampled to death or shot by SS officers. The prisoners are given no food or water, stuffed one hundred to a cattle car. It is snowing when Elie is sent to Buchenwald, and because of the lack of warm clothing, combined with the overcrowding and malnourishment, most of the prisoners die en route. Every so often, the train stops and the dead are stripped of their clothing to cover the living, then thrown out to make room: “Twenty bodies were thrown out of our wagon. Then the train resumed its journey, leaving behind it a few hundred naked dead, deprived of burial, in the deep snow of a field in Poland” (Wiesel 94). The passengers are so cold and hungry, they cannot think of how monstrous it was to steal from the dead. All they can think of is survival. (SECONDARY
The Jews first begin to be stripped of their humanity in their hometown of Sighet, Transylvania. Moshe the Beadle, a …show more content…
In fact, editor David Peck states that “after a death march and brutally cruel train ride… Wiesel and his father arrive at Buchenwald” (Wiesel 713). The so-called “death march” takes place traveling between Buna and the train that will eventually deliver them to Buchenwald. The already weak prisoners are forced to hike hundreds of miles in the snow. Those who are unable to keep up are either trampled to death or shot by SS officers. The prisoners are given no food or water, stuffed one hundred to a cattle car. It is snowing when Elie is sent to Buchenwald, and because of the lack of warm clothing, combined with the overcrowding and malnourishment, most of the prisoners die en route. Every so often, the train stops and the dead are stripped of their clothing to cover the living, then thrown out to make room: “Twenty bodies were thrown out of our wagon. Then the train resumed its journey, leaving behind it a few hundred naked dead, deprived of burial, in the deep snow of a field in Poland” (Wiesel 94). The passengers are so cold and hungry, they cannot think of how monstrous it was to steal from the dead. All they can think of is survival. (SECONDARY