The atrocities that swept through Europe during World War II brought with them the cultivation of a horrific contagion: dehumanization. Elie Wiesel's memoir Night exemplifies the spread of this disease by following Wiesel's journey through the concentration camps of the 1940s. At the time, these stories may have seemed unimaginable, but today historians cannot deny what happened during that dark time before liberation. Wiesel's memoirs can be used as evidence. Because of their inevitable acceptance and continuation of the dehumanization displayed by the Nazis, WWII concentration camp prisoners were condemned to a slow and painful death. The submission of others to both words and actions intended exclusively for animals or objects begins with the actions of the Nazis. Before even entering the labor camps, Wiesel and his fellow Jews are tragically dehumanized. Wiesel comments that “[t]here was a new decree: every Jew must wear the yellow star” (8). By imposing labels on the Jews of Sighet, the Nazi soldiers submit them to the wishes of Hitler, an evil and malicious man who takes no account of their names or identities. Furthermore, Jews are treated even more harshly when they arrive in Birkenau. "'Strip! Quick! Los! Hold only your belt and shoes..." (Wiesel 32) the SS officers shout at the Jews. Then, without emotion or pity, the oppressors watch Wiesel and his companions as they lay bare the their bodies. If these people were seen as human beings, the SS would not be able to maintain their gaze. Considering them nothing more than animals, Nazi soldiers can maintain nonchalance while seeking the strongest for the most labor-intensive tasks, just as a farmer would choose what ... middle of paper ... ...these are not the only cases of violent attacks that prisoners make on each other. Idek beats and whips Wiesel; father; Wiesel's ailing father is violently bullied by others on his block The list goes on and all can be traced back to dehumanization as the abusers have no consideration for the victims as people. After dehumanization has run its course, it leaves behind the bodies of countless undeserving victims, killed at the hands of both oppressors. and their accepting peers. Eleven million people died as a result of the Holocaust combined with the viral dehumanization that resulted from it. Six million of these eleven million people were Jews. Over a million were children. The Holocaust is a scar that this world's history must bear, but Wiesel carefully wrote his memoir Night to prevent such a horror from happening again..