Racism During the Holocaust

Racism during the Holocaust

Racism has existed throughout history and is still seen today. In history and still today, we see people that discriminate against one’s skin color or their religious beliefs. Religious beliefs was a main concern to the Nazis, they discriminated against, and persecuted the Jewish community. In the Jewish community, Elie Wiesel was a victim that lived through the holocaust; he is the protagonist and narrator of the autobiography, Night. This autobiography reveals how an individual is not able to stop racism.

Throughout the memoir, the society in Night is racist to the Jewish community. For example, the Jews were forced to go to the Auschwitz concentration camps. In the ghettos, where the Hungarian police came, the Jews are transported “one by one, [and] the houses [were] emptied and the streets filled with people carrying bundles” (Wiesel 16). Moreover, “the Hungarian police used their rifle butts, their clubs to indiscriminately strike old men and women, children and cripples” (16). The Hungarian police taking the Jews away from their town of Sighet, demonstrates the Nazis hatred toward the Jewish people, because taking away by force gives a sense of the revulsion. With hatred, the Hungarian police “indiscriminately” abuse the young and the weak this reveals how disrespectful the Nazis are giving a sense that they did not care for how they treated the people. Additionally, the Jews were forced to work for the Nazis. As Elie was in the concentration camp they are lectured by a Nazi officer and that they “must work. If [they] do not [they] will go straight to the chimney” (39). Moreover, Elie and his father are transported to camp Buna, and in this camp the work was not difficult they “counted bolts, bulbs, and carious small electrical parts”, they were also required to “ load diesel motors onto freight cars under the supervision of some German soldiers” (54). The Nazi officer’s lecture to the inmates illustrates how emotionless the Nazis were. The action of sending inmates to be burned in the crematorium is an action of inhumane cruelty, which gives the sense of being emotionless. The description of work done was not difficult, but the force to work demonstrates that Jews were used only for labor. Seeing the Jews just for labor displays the Nazis cold souls. Another example of this prejudice society can be seen when the Jews are treated badly at the concentration camps. One day Elie happens to be in Idek’s path and Idek, who is one of the most brutal Kapos “threw himself on [Elie] like a wild beast”, constantly beating Elie in the chest and head, “crushing [him]” with “more violent blows until [Elie is] covered in blood” (53). On another occasion, Elie was caught seeing something inappropriate and the consequence was that he was beaten until he “no longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip” (57). These ruthless

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