Elie Wiesel’s companions and he are astonished by the atrocities committed in Auschwitz. Their reaction is to become instinctive. “We had lost all sense of purpose. “We had lost all our instincts for self-preservation and self-defense. We also lost pride” (36). Inhumanity towards prisoners strips many of their roles as civilized citizens and makes them commit inhuman acts. They are no longer able to lead the lives that they used to, nor do they have leadership roles or work. Their sense of independence has disappeared. They are starved and beaten while they perform forced labor. Children are burned alive and their families are killed. The psychological and physical trauma in the camps causes the prisoners to lose their self-esteem. Wiesel, whose experience was filled with horror, and the shame he suffered from SS officers led to a profound disconnection. Elie wiesel has succeeded in expressing the loss of humanity that is caused by war, violence and trauma.
The Nazis deliberately designed concentration camps that dehumanized prisoners and tested them to the limit. Bruno Bettleheim, who survived Dachau, Buchenwald and other concentration camps, wrote extensively of his psychoanalytical findings. He studied himself, other prisoners and SS officers to analyze their motivations. The SS officers were aiming to “break the prisoners into docile groups…to provide Gestapo with a laboratory where they could study effective ways to break civilian resistance and the minimum nutrition, hygiene, and medical needs needed to keep the prisoners alive …”(Bettleheim49). Nazis wanted human endurance to be pushed beyond its limits for political reasons. Wiesel’s account reveals that the camps were calculated, since the prisoners were stripped off their clothes and belongings. The men’s individual signs that defined their individuality or their social status are removed. Prisoners are known only by the tattooed number on their arm in the camps. Wiesel remembers “I was A-7713. Then, I was A-7713. The men are left with a sense of inadequacy, more so than the brutality or hunger they have experienced. “No number or name can deprive a victim of a basic right – to have an identifier.” (Hassan 185). Prisoners were traumatized by the loss of their identity, as well as the physical terrors they experienced. The Nazis’ intention to erase lives was revealed by the symbolism behind the act of removing a person’s name.
The prisoners were often more hurt by smaller humiliations than any other punishment. Bettleheim explains that he observed his fellow prisoner’s reactions and concluded “One felt more aggressive aggressions toward SS men for minor vile crimes than one did against those who acted more horribly” (Bettleheim 66). Men were hurt more by verbal abuse than any serious physical injury. Nazis’ goal for prisoners was to make them lose their pride. Elie’s Father asks for the location of the restrooms in Night. The Kapo “slapped [my father] with such strength that he slid down, then crawled to his knees and sat up again” (39). Elie is stunned by this act of indecency. Elie feels that it has taken away his father’s decency and therefore, Elie himself. He feels ashamed of his inability to defend his father and can’t respond like he normally would. Bettleheim says that he needed to maintain his pride in order to survive. “…if one were to ask the author what his greatest problem was during his entire stay in the concentration camp, his answer would be to maintain his pride so that if he ever regained his freedom, it would make him the exact same person he once was. Bettleheim tries to stay sane by keeping his experiences apart from his self-perception. Elie Wiel’s memoir shows a near total loss in self, which is linked to trauma. This isn’t surprising. Judith Hassan states, “Life is no longer governed the same values as it was before the trauma”(Hassan18). In other words, the camps weren’t civilized, and their indignities pushed the prisoners further away from who they were before.
Elie’s instincts for survival often conflict with his instincts of filial love. Elie can be angry at his father for punishing him for weakness. Elie, who is watching his father get beaten by the SS for working slowly, writes “I watched without moving.” I remained silent. I was even thinking of running away so I wouldn’t have to take the blows…Why hadn’t he been able to escape Idek? (54). Elie is unable to help his father, who has been a father figure for generations. He gives his rations or teaches his father to march properly to his sickening father. Elie feels resentment growing in his heart. This resentment further dehumanizes him. He thinks, “If I had not found him!” when he searches for his ailing father. If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival…Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever” (106). Elie and his father have a complicated relationship that is based on love, guilt and remorse. He is afraid for his own life, so he tries to assist him. As he clings tightly to his dad as a reminder of a previous life, he is affected by the traumas of the camps in radically different ways. Bettlheim’s observations of his fellow prisoner helped him to understand this disconnect from the real life and the camp life. The prisoners’ feelings could be summarized by the following sentence: “Whatever I do here, whatever happens to me, doesn’t matter at all. Here, everything is permitted as long as and as far as it helps me survive in the camps”” (Bettleheim, 63). The men were forced to adapt their lifestyles and adjust to the extreme danger. Nazis deliberately broke down the bonds between parents and children, even though in civilized societies they seem to be unbreakable. Similar struggles were experienced by other prisoners in the camp. Elie and father meet their first friend from home, who was forced to throw his father’s corpse into a furnace. On a transport train, the man who killed his father to get a piece bread is also killed. Elie is forced to follow a Rabbi’s Son as the prisoners run through the snow. He remembers later that “…his own son saw his father lose ground and he continued to keep up with him, increasing the distance between the two (91). The Rabbi’s Son tried to save himself, even though it meant he had to abandon his connection with the real world. Wiesel emphasizes that these events were relevant to the holocaust as every father-son dynamic changed the dignity of each man involved. Elie must decide whether to help his dying father or protect himself. Instinctively, Elie is resentful of giving his food to his dying father. The test is not just an ethical one, but also involves a thorough analysis of trauma’s impact on instinct. In any normal situation, a person would feel proud for helping their parents, but in the camps, pride was twisted and socially learned behaviors were destroyed. Elie’s father-son relationship is comparable to an Oedipal complicated where the boy must kill his dad to survive. Elie refuses to listen to his father in the last moments of his life and acknowledges how his instincts affected him. “I’ll never forgive me.” I also will never forgive the rest of the world for putting me against the walls, turning me strangers, awakening in my most base, primal instincts (xii). Elie’s perceived role and the trauma of his death, as well as his own perceptions about it, rob him of all dignity. Elie’s new relationship with his dad demonstrates Nazi genocide’s systematic approach. The Nazis removed their victims’ self-esteem in order to decimate Jewish culture and any other group that opposed the Nazi regime. Bettleheim noted that “the Nazis seemed to have aimed to instill childlike behavior and dependence on their leaders, which was the main objective of the Nazi effort.” It was also difficult to resist the slow process leading to personality disintegration …”. In their attempts to systematically reorder the population by eugenics, the Nazis destroyed individuality. Losing control over your life and over your reactions caused a great deal of trauma in prisoners after they were liberated from concentration camps. Wiesel does not think of revenge or joy after he is freed from Buchenwald. He was stripped of his dignity, he lost both parents and his younger sister, and it was all done deliberately and with systematic intent. He is forever changed as a result. “…I took a look in my mirror. Since the ghetto, I hadn’t seen myself. In the mirror’s depths, I could see a corpse staring at me. “The look of his eyes never left me.” (115). Wiesel, a teenage boy who was in concentration camps, has lost his entire sense of identity. He is changed for life.
Bibliography
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Hill and Wang of New York published the work in 2006. Print.
Bettelheim, Bruno,. Surviving and other Essays. Vintage Books, New York, 1980. Print.
Hassan, Judith. A House next door to trauma : Learning how to respond from Holocaust survivors. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2003. Print.
