Reader Response 2: How Does it Feel to Be Human?

Dear Reader,

     At this point of the memoir Elie, his friends, and his father must make decisions that could change their lives. One quote that struck me while I was reading was "He commanded four prisoners to  mop the

floor... "For the liberating army" he told us. "Let them know that here lived men and not pigs" So we
were men after all?"(84). Continuing from the last post, the Germans stripped the identities of the Jews,

and people such as Elie, did not believe he was human because of the way the Jews were being treated. When I read the passage I, I was furious because the SS had degraded the inmates so much that they did

not feel human anymore. Also, I think Wiesel added this too his memoir to emphasize the horrible
conditions of the camps, and what the concentration camps did to the prisoners. The author makes the

reader notice the detail by telling the reader about the dehumanization of the detainees, then telling about what happened to the Jews, in a single, powerful quote. Yet, I wonder if the SS actually convinced Elie to

believe that he was an animal. Also, if everybody felt like a lifeless shell, what drove the Jews to
continuing living. What it the possibility of being liberated, or the possibility for them to see their families

again. Elie and his father have each other, and Tibi and Yossi have each other, but why do many of the inmates continue to suffer in the camps? Although I was shocked at this, the execution of another Jew felt

normal.

     Today in the class discussion about Night I was intrigued by the idea that the reader adapts to the environment much like the characters in the book have to. I thought about reading the night before and it

was true. At the beginning of the book, I was awestruck by how the SS treated the Jews, but later I was
calm when "executioner had completed his work"(62) by decapitating Reichsfüherer Himmler. I was

surprised that I felt this way. Reading this book was dehumanizing me too, just like how the Jews were being transformed into animals. When I realized this today, I was ashamed that I did not feel, angry at the

Germans. I also felt angry at myself for not feeling sympathetic towards the Jewish. These executions clashed with my views of the world. In addition to believing that all people equal, I believe that killing is

wrong, yet after adapting to the text, the execution of a Jew was quintessential. I realize that if reading the book dehumanizes one, then being there must be fifty-times worse, then being at the camp for 2 months

makes one a soulless case in the concentration camps.

                                                                                       ,Sincerely Alexander Ho