Have you ever experienced such a traumatic and drastic change in your life that you felt like a completely different person? During the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel and the other inmates in Auschwitz went through this kind of change. Through his exploration of dehumanization in Night, Wiesel reminds us that we have a personal responsibility to understand how people’s lives can change by very small things in an instant, that people have no right to treat others as anything less than human and that people can be broken down so much that their identities and feelings can change completely.
First, the idea of personal responsibility to other people helps show us that people’s lives can change in an instant, through the theme dehumanization. For example, …show more content…
For instance, the Wiesel family and the rest of the town of Sighet are hit with many rules that don’t allow them to do their normal everyday things, all of the rules are placed throughout the beginning of the book, but one line specifically lays it out. “But new edicts were already being issued. We no longer had the right to frequent restaurants or cafes, to travel by rail, to attend synagogue, to be on the streets after six o’clock in the evening” (11). The edicts were what the Jews could do and what they couldn’t do. Closer to when they were put into ghettos the more edicts there were. They were all unfair and didn’t allow the Jews to do anything. It started off with them having to wear yellow stars to show they were Jews, and making them look different. But, they then weren’t allowed to have jobs or go outside or even go to synagogue. These edicts made the Jews not themselves, so everyone stayed home and were scared to do otherwise. In addition, another significant time when the Nazis treated them other than human, was when the town of Sighet Jews arrived in Auschwitz and they were getting out of the cattle cars after hours of standing in an uncomfortable position, Dr. Mengele ordered all of them to form lines by saying this memorable line, “‘Men to the left! Women to the right!’ Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words” (29). This was the last time that Elie and his father saw his mother and little sister, Tzipora. It tore families apart and the Nazis didn’t care at all. Most camps sent all women and children to the gas chambers because in the subdivisions of the Jews, they were the most worthless in the Nazis eyes and were not seen as helpful in the labor camps in any way. Most camps only kept the stronger
First, the idea of personal responsibility to other people helps show us that people’s lives can change in an instant, through the theme dehumanization. For example, …show more content…
For instance, the Wiesel family and the rest of the town of Sighet are hit with many rules that don’t allow them to do their normal everyday things, all of the rules are placed throughout the beginning of the book, but one line specifically lays it out. “But new edicts were already being issued. We no longer had the right to frequent restaurants or cafes, to travel by rail, to attend synagogue, to be on the streets after six o’clock in the evening” (11). The edicts were what the Jews could do and what they couldn’t do. Closer to when they were put into ghettos the more edicts there were. They were all unfair and didn’t allow the Jews to do anything. It started off with them having to wear yellow stars to show they were Jews, and making them look different. But, they then weren’t allowed to have jobs or go outside or even go to synagogue. These edicts made the Jews not themselves, so everyone stayed home and were scared to do otherwise. In addition, another significant time when the Nazis treated them other than human, was when the town of Sighet Jews arrived in Auschwitz and they were getting out of the cattle cars after hours of standing in an uncomfortable position, Dr. Mengele ordered all of them to form lines by saying this memorable line, “‘Men to the left! Women to the right!’ Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words” (29). This was the last time that Elie and his father saw his mother and little sister, Tzipora. It tore families apart and the Nazis didn’t care at all. Most camps sent all women and children to the gas chambers because in the subdivisions of the Jews, they were the most worthless in the Nazis eyes and were not seen as helpful in the labor camps in any way. Most camps only kept the stronger