The quote by Audre Lorde states that, “Unless one lives and loves in the trenches; it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.” In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel demonstrates how Eliezer experienced his life in the concentration camp with his father and how Jews kept suffering from slavery and death. The memoir is important because it displays how Jews got tormented from Nazi reigns.
Even though the Holocaust ended the Jews would not get their previous live style back. In the novella Night, Eliezer and the Jews witnesses dehumanization by the Germans. Dehumanization process is shown by Eliezer removing his clothes, Germans taking away his mother and sisters, and taking away his religion. The first dehumanization process was Eliezer removing his clothes. Eliezer’s “clothes were to be thrown on the floor at the barrack.
There was a pile there already. New suits, old one, torn overcoats, and rags. For us, it meant true equality: Nakedness” (Wiesel 35). This quote explains that Eliezer is uncomfortable removing his clothes in front of many people.
In addition to being uncomfortable, the removal of clothes represented Eliezer’s loss of identity. It symbolizes his loss of identity because the removal of his clothes depicts that Eliezer will be treated as equally bad as the other Jew in the camp. The second dehumanization process is when the Germans took away Eliezer’s mother and sisters. Eliezer’s “mother was stroking” his “sister’s blond hair, as if to protect her.
And I walked with my father, with the men. I didn’t know this was the moment in time and place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever” (Wiesel 29). Hence, the German soldiers dehumanized Eliezer by preventing him from saying goodbyes to his mother and sisters. The prevention led him to think that he was going to see them later, which was not true. The last dehumanization process for Eliezer was when Germans took away his religion. Eliezer “felt anger rising within” himself.
“Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (Wiesel 33). This quote proves that Eliezer lost the trust on God because if God truly existed he would not have let the Jews suffer. To conclude, Eliezer got dehumanized my Germans removing his clothes, taking away his mother and sister and taking away his religion.
The other Jews had suffered dehumanization by losing their identity, starvation and the Jews turning against one another.
