One of the saddest facets of the Holocaust was non how many lives were lost. but how many psyches were lost. Those lucky plenty to last Auschwitz. Buchenwald. and the similar came out changed work forces and adult females. and non for the better. While some. such as Elie Wiesel. were able to lend to the universe and maintain alive the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. many left the experience shells ; shadows of their former egos. So much had changed during their clip in the concentration cantonments and they had lost so much of their self-respect and individuality.
This issue is a major facet of the fresh Night. The characters in Night are subjected to ghastly horrors at the concentration cantonments in which they are imprisoned. As a consequence. they start to lose their hope. self-respect. and individuality. The experience is exhaustively dehumanising.
A wise individual named Michael Moore one time said. “The unfortunate thing about us worlds is that one time abused. some of us seek to mistreat others…Sometimes people merely go brainsick from excessively much maltreatment and force and take drastic. irrational steps to protect themselves. ” In Night. this quote rings unhappily true. With all the other atrociousnesss they face. the concentration camp’s captives shouldn’t have to cover with their companions turning on each other.
Examples of this include the chief who forces Elie to give him his gold tooth ( 53 ) and the old adult male whose boy kills him for a piece of staff of life ( 96 ) . In the first instance. a immature adult male named Franek. the chief of the topographic point where Elie works. one twenty-four hours all of a sudden tells Elie. “Give me your Crown. child. ” This is a daze ; Elie describes him as a normally “sympathetic. intelligent youth” ( 52 ) . Like so many others in the cantonment. though. Franek is non himself any longer. Before coming to the cantonment. Franek was a pupil. and likely a really sort and sensible individual. However. the experience of the concentration cantonment – the eternal labour. opprobrious guards. and random violent deaths – has changed him so much that he is now coercing a immature male child to give him his tooth.
At one point in Night. while crammed in waggons like cowss and going through a German township. the captives are thrown bread by world-weary German workingmans. Equally shortly as the staff of life hits the waggon. there is a rapid scuffle for them. The work forces fight each other to the decease for a few staff of life crumbs. like ducks in a pool might. Elie. informant to this spectacle. eyes an old adult male creeping off from the hassle with his manus to his thorax. Elie thinks the adult male has been hit in the thorax at first. but shortly realizes the adult male has managed to snag some staff of life. A younger adult male walks up to the old adult male and begins to strike him pitilessly. “Meir. Meir. my male child! ” cries the old adult male. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m your father…you’re aching me…you’re killing your male parent! ” ( 96 ) . The male child kills his male parent and takes the staff of life.
Unfortunately. the others have spotted this and they jump on him. killing him besides. This is one of the most tragic points in the book. Elie. merely 15 old ages old. is shocked at the behaviour of those older and purportedly wiser than him. A adult male has merely been killed by his ain boy for a piece of staff of life. Have the captives been treated so horrendously that this has to go on? It is seemingly so. These people have lost their non merely their places. ownerships. and sense of individuality. but now besides their compassion and self-respect. They are like animate beings.
The people who have truly lost their sense of humanity. though. are the Nazis. What is less human than the deficiency of understanding they showed toward the Jews whom they so viciously tormented? Their mindless violent death and careless attitude toward the Jews is something so hideous. it still blows the heads of people around the universe 60 old ages subsequently. How could anyone hold such strong feelings against their fellow adult male? That inquiry remains unreciprocated. but it has led the Nazis to be ( truly ) remembered as the most inhumane group of people in the history of the universe.
