“Father, if that is true, then I don’t want to wait. I’ll run into the electrified barbed wire. That would be easier than a death in the flames.” (pg. 33)
The Night is a book written by holocaust survivor, Eliezer Wiesel. Elie writes the book from his own point of view as a fifteen-year-old boy during World War II. In the novel Night, Elie describes the horrors of the holocaust that he, along with the other Jews, endured. The Nazis did this by depriving the Jews of their identity and by changing the feelings they had towards their family and others.
One of the many ways that the Nazis used to dehumanize Jews is by depriving them of their identity. Privileges that most people seem common were taken away from the Jews. For example, Jewish people weren’t allowed to own jewelry and they could not go out of their own homes. If a Jew were caught outside, they would have the penalty of death.
“First edict: Jews were prohibited from leaving their residences for three days, under penalty of death ….. a Jew was henceforth forbidden to own gold jewelry or any valuable. Everything had to be handed over to the authorities …. Every Jew had to wear the yellow star ….. 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.
Then came the ghettos.” (pg.10-11) This quote shows that the Nazis stripped the Jews from their basic human rights.
Upon their arrival at the camp, the Jewish people were assigned a number and had their identity stripped from them. Clothes, shoes, hair, everything that could have meant anything to them, was gone.