Theme Of Dehumanization In The Book Night

Dehumanizing is taking human rights, characteristics, and emotions away from any person. The Nazis took those rights away from the Jews to make them seem like animals or things. All of the Jews were dehumanized during the Holocaust. There are many examples of dehumanization throughout the book, Night by Elie Wiesel. The Nazis dehumanized the Jews by loading them into cattle cars, tattooing them, and when Eliezer was whipped. An example of the Jews being dehumanized was when Eliezer and all of his fellow Jews, men and women, were loaded into cattle cars like animals (22-23). The Jewish men and women were put together in several cattle cars together, but the Jewish religion didn’t allow men and women to be close together. The Nazis were degrading …show more content…
When Eliezer was whipped, his spirit was taken away. When Eliezer saw Idek and the Polish girl together, Idek said, “Just you wait, kid… You will see what it costs to leave your work… You’ll pay for this later….” Eliezer was being a “nuisance” to Idek so Eliezer got whipped as a punishment just like someone would do to an animal. In addition to both of those examples, all of the Jews were tattooed with numbers as their names on their left arms (42). Eliezer says, “From then on, I had no other name." The Jews went by their tattooed number for roll call and everything else. It was against the Jews’ religion to be tattooed. If the Jews were tattooed, then they weren’t going to heaven anymore. When the Nazis had the Jews tattooed, the Nazis were spitting on the Jewish religion. The Nazis tried to weaken the Jews’ faith. The Nazis were very good in a bad way at dehumanizing the Jews in many different ways. At the end of Night, Eliezer was so dehumanized from everything that had happened that he was no longer Eliezer but he was Elie now (115). Eliezer made it clear throughout the book that the Jews were dehumanized by the