For many centuries, individuality has been asserted as a misconception, through its political and social philosophy. People disregard individuality, as it is the quality or character of a person that distinguishes themselves from others of the same species, especially when they are dynamically notorious. When you live a life full of dreams, those aspirations give you the motivation to do anything, almost as a true purpose to live and prosper. However, when those dreams have vanished, that self-encouragement depletes right beside them. Like in this situation in Elie Wiesel's memoir called Night, Wiesel loses his humanity. The night is an inscription of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the horror he had gone through in the concentration camps. He was so devastated by the gas chambers, the crematories, and the hangings he bears witness, that he felt a part of him internally died. It had become like a tug of war to walk between the emotional state of mind and the physical torment that emphasizes the moral worth of his value.
Elie entered Auschwitz at fifteen years old, as he overlooked countless struggles for survival, leaving him to lose all of his humanity. Wiesel endeavors with his religion of being Jewish through the genocide process of the Holocaust that was completed by the Nazis. Elie recounts, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me”(82). Wiesel’s assessment figuratively distinguishes himself as a dead body in the mirror staring back at himself and uses this expression as an evident way to prove that Wiesel’s essence disintegrated during the Holocaust. He never really started to internally live in his mind after seeing from left to right, and from the past to the present for what originally happened within the lens of his two eyes. Elie’s encounter has taught him that the Nazis’ brutality has deformed one’s perception and provoked a sense of torment among the prisoners. Self-conservation became the greatest integrity in the world of the Holocaust and led prisoners like Elie to perpetrate gruesome crimes against one another as they lost humanity in their ruthless desire to survive. Elie has learned that any human being, including himself, is competent of unbelievable severity. He reflects on how he has changed as a person during the Holocaust, having his innocence stripped away within moments.
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Despite the inhumanity, and abomination implemented through the camps, there are some who believe the signs of humanity Elie Wiesel conveys. Elie tells the story of the French girl who worked with him in the warehouse at Buna. The French girl portrayed, 'Bite your lips, little brother...Don't cry. Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. The day will come but not now ... Wait. Clench your teeth and wait ... '(94) After Elie is beaten by Kapo, the French girl wipes his face and gives him a smile. She vents to him in German, to be tolerant and save his indignation. She represents herself at major risk by revealing she can speak German, but on the other hand, she can not resist coming to his aid.
Although others may think that having a French girl give Elie advice to not give up means that he had not lost not his humanity, they are misguided because Elie struggled to retain his humanity in the face of nearly invincible hardship even after this encounter. His outlook on life and humanity completely changes as he shows the horrors of living in a concentration camp. When Wiesel entered Auschwitz, his childhood innocence was traumatized when he witnessed men, women, and children being dumped into gas chambers, crematories, and hangings. Wiesel’s view about humanity and God changes when he sees how the exposure of human viciousness can dispossess humans of their sense of morality and humanity. Wiesel owes his struggle of inhumanity not only to God but to everything surrounding him. After experiencing such horror, Elie is blindsighted as to why these events have occurred in the Holocaust, not realizing that it was God testing him. His foundation of disillusionment consequences himself from his dreadful experience with Nazi persecutions and from the brutality bred as he saw prisoners thrust on each other. Elie became aware of the torment of which he himself was capable. Eliezer recounts, “Stunned by blows, the old man was crying. “ Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me… you killing your father… I have bread …for you too…for you too. Then he collapsed….the old man mumbled something and then died. Nobody cared. His son searched him, took the bread, and began to devour it. he didn’t get far… when they withdrew there were two dead bodies next to me, the father and son.” (164). Wiesel had abused his father to death for just the bread that his father had reserved for him. Wiesel would never have been proficient enough to kill his father, but in the environment of cruelty and in his struggle to survive, he drowns himself as he loses his humanity. There was a converse of the father and son’s relationship as his father declined to an impotent state while Elie became his jaundiced caregiver.
Throughout the Holocaust, Elie progresses into rebelling against God. He always questioned God about his motives but never his presence or existence. He chooses not to accept God because God has not stopped the torment Elie witnessed during the holocaust. He refuses to pray to Him anymore because he had lost his humanity when he watched children being burned, tortured, and killed nonchalantly by the officers. His trust in Him faded throughout his stay at Auschwitz as he fought between life and death on only small rations of food through consistent labor. This reaction of Elie reveals that evil infiltrated his point of view changing his whole entire perception and losing his humanity.
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