Cruelty And The Holocaust In Elie Wiesel's Night

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Cruelty and the Holocaust
Cruelty in the theme of man’s inhumanity to man shows frequently during the time of the Holocaust. Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, includes both the Nazi’s cruelty to the Jews and the Jew’s grown cruelty toward each other. This novel Describes Elie’s long journey in the concentration camps and the horrors he has witnessed.
Upon first arrival, Elie and the others are shocked to see the large fire that the Nazis are burning adults and children in, despite if they are alive or not. He could not believe what he was seeing. It was on that first night that he was introduced to the horrors of the concentration camps.“I could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the world would never tolerate such …show more content…
They get very few rations of food a day, many people did not last but a week or two, and minor interjections or misdemeanors resulted in beatings. The Nazis treated them like pigs; they forced them to starve, and live like objects. As Stein, a relative of the Wiesel's, states: “The weak don’t last very long here…” (70)
Near the end of Night, The forced prisoners must run for days in the snow to escape the liberating army. They run until some of them drop dead in the snow, and others want to stop and just collapse. “The idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate me. To no longer exist. To no longer feel the excruciating pain”. (86) When they finally get to their destination (another camp), the exhausted Jews collapse into a pile on top of each other; thus, some people suffocate and die.
When they leave that camp, they board a train which is where Elie sees the Jews show cruelty toward each other. The trip on the train lasts ten days with very little food and water, so many of them die. Because they are starving, some of them are willing to do anything for food. A few German workers take to throwing bread into the train cars and watching the Jews fight to the death over the pieces. As they are fighting, Weisel describes them as “beasts of prey unleashed, animal hate in their eyes.” (101) One man, he says, even kills his own father to get
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