Essay Sample: Into The Serects Of The Holocaust
The Holocuast: one of humanity's most terrifying and hideous acts in human history. The book Night by Elie Wiesel was a story told by Mr. Wiesel and all the horrific things he experienced during the Holocaust at Auschwitz. The Holocaust was a direct attack on humans because Hitler believed they were a inferior race and were the outcast in society. He believed by eliminating all of the jews and anyone that didn’t fit his standards would make society better. By doing this Hiltler would dehumanize and take away many people's freedom and individuality. In the book Night, the Nazis dehumanized Elie Wiesel and other Holocaust victims because they starved them, sent them on death marches, and brutally killed them.
The first way the Nazis dehumainzed the prisoners in the Holocaust was by starving them to the point of death. The Nazi’s would use starvation as an essential strategy to kill and dehumanize the prisoners of the Holocaust. The prisoners would go days and nights on end with little to no food and if they got anything it was tiny scraps of bread and soup. This eventually led to many of them dropping dead of starvation and even fighting each other for the tiny crumbs of bread and sadly Elie and his father witnessed it all. Elie says, “We stayed in Gleiwitz for three days. Days without food or water….I was hungry and thirsty… And who knew when we would be given another ration?” (Wiesel 95). Gleiwitz was almost like a pit stop from the prisoners after their march there. They stayed here for three days and in these few days they had no food and no water and were all near death or dead. From here on they would get on the train and many people would die and suffocate due to people being crammed into the train. Here and there the Nazi’s would throw tiny pieces of bread into the train and the prisoners would fight eachother for the small crumbs. The Nazi’s dehumanized these helpless people by controlling there food rations and whether or not they will even be feed that day or the next. The Nazi’s would deprive all of the Holocaust prisoners of there fights and freedoms. The author wrote “Prisoners from across Nazi-occupied Europe were forcibly deported to Auschwitz in nightmarish conditions: crammed into freight cars, with no water or food, traveling for days, on a journey that sometimes proved deadly” (“The Struggle To Survive Auschwitz”). This shows how the Nazi’s didn’t care what the weather was or how far they were going they would make these poor people travel with barley any clothes on there bodys with no food and no water for days. They were forced to travel with so many people that carried many deadly diseases that would get them all sick. The Nazi’s would dehumanize these prisoners by taking away food and water to kill them all and watch them starve to death. The Nazi’s dehumanized these people by starving them but by also sending them on death marches.
Another way the Nazi’s dehumanized the prisoners was by sending them on death marches that last for long cold days. Elie and his father were sent on a death march because the Nazi’s believed they needed to evacuate before the Military came and saved them all. Durning the ice cold and snowy weather, the Nazi’s made the men run the entire time. They had ripped clothes and some had no shoes. Elie and his father were being screamed at to move faster and pick up the pace. As they continued they started to run on people that had fallen and got shot, many bodies laid there and got trampled on by the rest who ran. Thousands of people started dropping dead of starvation, cold weather, and even being exposed to different sicknesses on these marches. The Nazi’s ordered the prisoners to run while on the death march and Elie says “Near me, men were collapsing into the dirty snow… trampled under the feet of the thousands of men who followed us.” (Wiesel 86). On the run people were dying and there was nothing anyone could do because if you stopped running you would also be the one on the ground getting run over. The Nazi’s threatened that anyone who would slow down, stop, or fall would immediately be shot and that was a way the Nazi’s would strip away all their rights on the death march. Elie and his father continued to run over the poor hopeless bodies not being able to stop and help because they would get shot. The Nazi’s dehumanized these people by forcibly controlling there every move. During these marches many people wanted to give up and just drop down and die just like Elie’s father. But Elie had other plans for himself and his father, he knew how far they had made it and didn’t want their death to be on this march. He continued to push him and his father to keep moving while being told they were filthy dogs. The Nazis had plans on getting all these people out and sometimes it had to be killing many people before even leaving for the march. The article mentions “The fifty-eight thousand prisoners prisoners, most of them Jewish, were driven out of the Auschwitz camps and put on death marches. Most of them were killed on these marches; others were murdered even before the camps were evacuated.” ("Auschwitz").
Many of these people were dying for the saddest things like exhaustion and starvation and as the march went on it just increased more and more. The Nazis mistreated and dehumanized these people by putting them in so much suffering and pain on the march. They would starve them before the march and then send them on the march so weak with no food or water in there body and make them run the entire way. These men were weak and just getting by dailey with little rations so for the SS guards to make their tourture worse is terrible but they didn’t care. This march was not only horrific but it was truly a march to many peoples death. The Nazi’s deprived the prisoners by sending them on marches that in the end led to death, but they also would kill them for no reason at all.
The final way the Nazi’s dehumanized the Jews was by brutally killing large amounts of prisoners in horiffic ways. The Nazi’s were ruthless and cruel human beings that killed many people simply just because they believed anyone that had a disability, was a jew, liked the same gender, and others were a burden to society. The Nazis had many killing centers (gas chambers) that they used to kill large amounts of people by telling them they were going to shower. They would hang people and shoot them for no reason. Elie and his father were forced to watch people get hung and saw hundreds of people get shot, but were not able to do anything while in Auschwitz. They also had the selection process that Elie and his father had to go through very often that would tell you if you are going to live or die based on how weak or strong you are. Moishe the Beadle returns back after seeing all the horrifying things the Nazi’s did and says to Elie “There every-body was ordered to get out. They were forced to dig huge trenches. Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for machine guns.” (Wiesel 6). Moishe was lucky enough to escape this killing without being caught. The Nazis took these people and made them dig there own graves because when the Nazi’s came around they would shoot each individual and they prisoners would fall into there grave. Then they used the poor babies who some could not even walk, they would throw them in the air and use them as a practice target for shooting. This was just one was the Nazis would savagly kill and dehumanize the prisoners in large groups having no sympathy for them. They killed little babies feeling no empathy for them either. The Nazis had everything planned out from how they were going to kill millions of jews to where they will put there dead bodys. This significantly shows how much power the Nazis had over the prisoners and how the prisoners were robbed from there free will to live and walk without being in fear of getting killed. The Nazi’s dehumanized the prisoners by killing then in many different ways.
Overall the Nazi’s dehumanized the helpless prisoners by starving them close to death, sending them on death marches, and savagly killing many people. The Nazis dehumaized the millions of prisoners by starving them close to death. When they were at the camps they got little to no food and were forced to work days and nights on empty stomachs not knowing when they would be given another ration. The Nazi’s also sent them on death marches in terrible weather conditions that were snowy, freezings, and rainy. They were forced to run the entire way and if you stopped you would immediately be killed. Finally the Nazis would kill these sad people with no reasoning or explantation why, they just were able to. Whether it was with gas chambers, shootings, getting hung, or just dropping dead of starvation because the Nazis didn’t feed them and many grew to weak to move. The Holocaust has had a huge impact on modern day today. No one will ever forget or deny what happen over the many years of horrific and terrifying acts the Nazi’s did to millions of innocent people.
