Haley Bia

English 10
Mr. Verhulst
3/24/15
Human Worth
How far is someone willing to go to hurt someone? What would it take to cause you to
hurt someone; to physically inflict pain? Would they cross the line that marks the spot of no
turning back? Would you cross that line that marks the spot of no turning back? In the 1900s,
people moved far past that line during World War 2. Hitler crossed that line. The Jews were
brutally treated at his command. The Jewish people were first deprived of their citizenship when
they lost the freedom to own a business or buy and sell as everyone else. When they were forced
to wear the Star of David they were labelled as outcasts. Hitler's plan: to indoctrinate non-Jews to
believe that the Jews were the cause of Germany's problems, they were evil, less than human,
worthless. The non-Jews reacted in different ways when they found out what was happening to
the Jews. They did one of the following: went along with the brutality, ignored it, or opposed it
and tried to help the Jews. Many people were afraid to help the Jews because they didnt want to
get into trouble; the punishment was death. God does not want his people to ignore those who are
being hurt. God wants his children to stand for the helpless. God wants Christians to defend his
people. Christians need to know what actions to take when they encounter this. In Night, the
Jews were stripped of their human worth; Christians need to recognize both the value of humans
and dehumanization like this to stand against it.
The Bible says in Psalm 82:3-4: Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of
the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the

wicked. God is telling his people what they need to do for the fatherless, weak, afflicted, and
destitute. God gives mankind guidelines on how to treat the people, who others may think are
below humans. God does not say, Ignore those who cry out for help. No, God tells them to
give justice to the weak and fatherless, rescue the needy, deliver these from the hand of the
wicked. God loves each and every one of his children, This is love: not that we loved God, but
that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10). No one is
held higher in the eyes of God, he loves each person equally. God sent his son to die for all the
humans of the earth. No race or religion was left out when Jesus died for our sins. Jesus died so
that all mankind could have eternal life with God our Father. For everyone was made equal;
made by the same hands,Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we
are all the work of your hand (Isaiah 64:8). Mankind was made in the image of God, as Genesis
1:27 tells us: So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. All humans were made with the same worth. We are all
valuable. Humans were all made for God, and even though we are sinners God still loves us,
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for
us (Romans 5:8). Jesus showed humans that all mankind is equal. All humans sin and rebel
against God. We all choose to live a sinful life. It says in John 3:16: For God so loved the world
that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal
life. God loved the world. He didnt love one man above the other. Jesus came down from
Heaven to teach mankind about God. Jesuss disciples were considered the scum of the earth.
They were not necessarily liked, and they were treated with no value. But Jesus showed people
that the scum of the earth were just like the rest of mankind. They have the same value as the rest
to the humans. Different people have different pains and struggles that they go through; other

people can not judge the helpless if they dont know what the helpless go through, Gods Son
learned about poverty and about family squabbles and social rejection and verbal abuse and
betrayal. He learned, too, about pain. What it feels like to have and accuser leave the red imprint
of his fingers on your face. What it feels like to have a whip studded with metal lashed across
your back. What it feels like to have a crude iron spike pounded through muscle, tendon, and
bone. On earth Gods Son learned all that (pg. 271). Jesus knows what being helpless feels
like, yet Jesus treated every person, even his accusers, with love. C.S. Lewis wrote on pg 46, of
his book The Weight of Glory: All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or
the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the
awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one
another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have
never talked to a mere mortal. C.S. Lewis is saying that people need to care for others and
make sure there is no harm. God calls his followers to serve him by loving those who are
considered less than in the eyes of man.
Would ignoring and disobeying the teacher be dehumanizing? To be dehumanized is to
have our human qualities taken away. People arent being treated like they are a human. Yes,
ignoring the teacher is taking away their human qualities; essentially the student is acting as if
they are not there. Another example of this is when someone is not shown respect and treated
like they are below everyone else. The book Night clearly shows how the Jews were treated
harshly and inhumanly. Before World War 2 the Jews were treated with human worth because
they were treated like all the other citizens. Their neighbors and fellow citizens respectfully
interacted with the Jewish population. Once World War 2 was set in motion, German people had
begun to blame the Jews for Germanys problems. The solution was to get rid of them. In order

for that to happen people had to hate the Jews, had to see them as less than human. When
everything started, the Jews were forced to stay in their houses. Their right to freely roam the city
was taken away. The worse part of it all was that they were punished with death. It wasnt just a
fee or warning, it was death, First edict: Jews were prohibited from leaving their residences for
three days, under penalty of death (pg. 10). The Jews were threatened with death when the
broke a little rule. When they didnt do anything they were beat. Jews were beat for no apparent
reason. The most vulnerable of all the Jews were beat; they were an easy target: The Hungarian
police used their rifle butts, their clubs to indiscriminately strike old men and women, children
,and cripples (pg 16). The vulnerable Jews in this case were separated from the rest of the Jews.
Just like how the Jews were picked out from all of civilization. They were separated by the star
that they were ordered to wear. The Jews didnt know what to think of the stars. The yellow stars
were not good. Eliezers father didnt say that they were bad, They wanted to know what he
thought of the situation. My fathers view was that it was not all bleak, or perhaps he just did not
want to discourage the others, to throw salt in their wounds (pg 11). But any separation made
between different groups of people is bad. Once people are separated, different groups of people
begin to think that they are better than the others. The groups begin to degrade the other groups
because of their differences. People should not feel like they are less than another person because
of how they look, what they believe, or where they come from. The Jews lost all of their
freedom. The captors controlled what they ate, what the did, when they worked, and when they
slept. They had no freedom, Forbidden to go outside, people relieved themselves in a corner.
(pg 22) The Jews were then treated like animals by their captors because they were considered
un-human, As if he wished to ascertain that the person addressing him was actually a creature
of flesh and bone, a human being with a body and a belly (pg 39). The Jews were poorly fed by

their captors. They were sometimes transported by train, other times they were forced to run.
When trains would go through towns they would occasionally stop where there would be
onlookers. The citizens that saw the Jews would throw food into the carts and watch as the Jews
fought over the food: And the spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a
crust of bread (pg 101). The Jews werent just treated like animals, but like trash. Animals were
treated better than the Jews. The Germans wanted the Jews to be extinct. NIGHT. No one was
praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that
was consuming us. Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in
the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes (pg 21). The Jews were killed by the hundreds. They
were taken through gas chambers, babies were thrown into fires. The Germans would do
anything to get rid of the Jews, Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes children thrown
into the flames (pg 32).Some Jews were considered healthy and were put to work, instead of
being killed right away. There were some cases where Jews were hung because they did
something wrong.The act of hanging was demonstrated on pg 64, To hang a child in front of
thousands of onlookers was not a small matter. To make matters worse, the other inmates were
forced to look straight at the people who were just hung, And so he remained for more that half
an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look
at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not
yet extinguished (pg 65). There is so much cruelty in this. The Jews seemed to grow
accustomed to the idea of death; they saw it daily.The act of making the Jews stare into the eyes
of one of their fellow Jews, that had just been hung, is inhuman. The Jews endured a massive
amount of cruelty. Whether it was seeing their loved ones killed, or simply being caged up. They
were forced to move out at a moments notice and not keeping up was fatal. They had orders to

shoot anyone who could not sustain the pace (pg 85). The Jews had no freedom, no food, no
life. Life for them was survival. Every man for himself. The Jews began to disrespect and
terrorize their fellow Jews so that they could survive. They would even beat each other in order
to obtain belongings, food, or anything that would help them survive: My son, they are beating
me! (pg 109). Eliezers dad was beat by his inmates because he was too weak to go outside to
relieve himself. They also took his rations when he was asleep. Stripping a person of their human
qualities is unthinkable, but a person believing that they have no human worth is even worse.
The world may seem like it has become free of dehumanization, but there are people in
the world that deprive others of their human worth. Personally when I disrespect my parents or
refuse to listen to my siblings; I am treating them like they are not a priority, like they are not in
the room with me. Whatever I am doing in that moment holds more value than my parents and
siblings. Within the world today, people are constantly brutalizing other people, which is worse
than not listening to them. The trafficking of women is a glaring example of dehumanization.
The women who are taken into human trafficking are being treated without respect. They are
sold and used like a product at a store. Their dignity slowly slips away until they too believe that
they have no value; that they are just objects. Christians need to recognize that the victims of
dehumanization exist and they are not being treated the way God created them to be treated. God
wants his followers to react to this situation with love. To care for the helpless more than
themselves, Life? I no longer care to live. I am alone. But I wanted to come back to warn you.
Only no one is listening to me (pg. 7). God wants us to think of others before ourselves; we
need to be selfless. Gods people need to help the weak by taking their problems onto our backs.
Showing the helpless love through our actions such as: healing the sick, giving to the poor, being
a friend to the lonely. We have to see the difference between human value and brutality to others.

Once we are able to see the difference, we will be able to see dehumanization and instead of
ignoring it, take action to put a stop to it on all levels. Stepping up and telling the abuser to stop
and then trying to comfort and respect the victim, to show them that they are special and loved.
Thats not the only thing we can do but also the following: pray, love them, and teach them. We
have to pray for the abuser, pray to ask God to help the abuser turn their lives around. Give God
the problem becauses only God can truly change a person and their way of living. Show the
abuser how to love, by loving them and respecting them. Dont try to put down the abuser with
hateful words or rude actions, but care for them. Treat them like the Lord would want you to;
treat them how you would want to be treated. Teach them that God loves everyone equally, no
one is better than the other. We are all made perfectly in Gods eyes. God did not create one man
to stand above his neighbor, but to serve God by serving his neighbor. Albert Schweitzer wrote
this quote: The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help
others. Give aid to those who call for help, help them even when they do not call, and love
them. As a community we can simply pray together, or raise money to give to organizations that
are already trying to stop dehumanization. The homeless are dehumanized. Most people wont
tell a homeless person that they are beneath everyone else, but many people have done that
through their actions. I have degraded the homeless through my actions. I try not to encounter
homeless people. I avoid making eye contact so that they wont come and talk to me. In the
parking lots it is a constant race for me to get to the car without having a homeless person come
up to me and ask for money. When I talk to the homeless everything feels awkward. I am always
on my toes because I feel insecure and unsure. I can talk to a total stranger when I am at school
or on a plane. I choose not to talk to the homeless. I feel like if I pretend that they arent there
then they wont come up to me. All these little acts of trying to not encounter a homeless person

is degrading them, taking away their human qualities. A simple hello or even a nod towards
them, to acknowledge that they are actually present, is one way to handle this. To go a step
farther, people can go out with a friend and just talk with the homeless; get to know them. They
all have stories; they are human too. Communities and individuals can work at local homeless
shelters or food pantries, to show the homeless that they are worth just as much as the richest
man on earth.
The Jews actions started to become like their abusers. Everyone started to fall into
hurting each other. People didnt care that they were hurting another human. They began to treat
each other with cruelty. Some people helped the Jews by hiding them, becoming the hands and
feet of God. These people did not care that the punishment, if found, was death. They knew that
if they didnt help, someone would surely die. But if they did help, maybe this Jew would be able
to survive. They looked past their differences and noticed their similarities. All humans are the
same. Each of us were made by the same God for the same purpose; to serve him. Different
people might have a different color of skin, different body shape, different religion, but we are all
equal. God loves us each the same and he didnt make any of us to stand above another. People
need to notice those who are not being treated with the respect that they deserve. People need to
know that the next thing to do is to take action against it. Have the courage to put a stop to the
wrong. The world is full of war and conflict. And those are major problem in our world.
Dehumanization is low key, but a big problem. The problem can be found anywhere: in our
homes, streets, country, world. There is no stop. Unless people begin to take the step towards
improvement, a step towards the unwanted, steps toward the different, a step towards the Jews.
To show them that they are equal, they are just as important to the world as everyone else. The
Jews were killed and they began to feel worthless. They started to die on the inside, they didnt

care what happened. They were a walking corpse. If society lets people be treated like they are
worthless, the victims will begin to die inside. They will beat themselves down, they will believe
that they are worthless. No person should feel worthless. Society cant let these victims feel like
they dont belong and that nothing would change if they were gone. We need to fight against
dehumanization, the victims need a people to come and treat them with the human worth that we
were all made with.
Sources

Wiesel, Elie. Night. France: Les Editions de Minuit, 1972. Print.

Yancey, Philip. The Jesus I Never Knew. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 271. Print.
Lewis, Clive S. The Weight of Glory. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 46. Print.
Holy Bible. New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

2011. 1-679. Print.

Schweitzer, Albert. "Albert Schweitzer Quotes." Brainy Quotes.
N.p., 2015. Web. 25 Mar. 2015. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brainyquote.com
%2Fquotes%2Fquotes%2Fa%2Falbertschw133530.html>.