As one might expect from a book written by an eyewitness of the Holocaust who barely escaped death at concentration camps, Night by Elie Wiesel deals with the subject of evil in much detail. The teenage author’s encounters with SS soldiers and the personnel of the death camps provide more than enough material for this approach. However, it would be presumptuous to assume that Elie represents the Holocaust as a sum of decisions and actions made by a handful of evil people, be they Nazi leaders of SS personnel. While these commit atrocious crimes in the course of the book, many other people portrayed on its pages are not paragons of moral virtue and resort to despicable acts as well. Thus, the author demonstrates how the times of crisis, such as the one described in the book, bring forward the evils inherent in humanity as a whole. They may assume many forms, but the book illustrates how all these inherent evils stem from a single source – the indifference to suffering prompted by the unwillingness to perceive one’s fellow human as a person.
The book’s beginning already contains a hint at how the times of crisis may bring out this evil forth in the hearts of people. Elie describes that several years into the war, the Hungarian government decides to expel foreign Jews, including some of his acquaintances. While the police cram them into cars and drives in an unknown direction, Hungarian Jews do not even think of interfering. Moreover, some of them even justify the measure by saying: “What do you expect? This is war”. It appears that the fate of the deported does not concern the Jews of Sighet too much. Elie makes no secret of the fact that “the deportees were quickly forgotten,” and the ton went in living as usual as if nothing had happened. It is already a telling episode: after witnessing the forceful expulsion of their kin and friends, the people are content to forget what happened as long as they are not threatened themselves. This indifference to the suffering of the others is the inherent evil rooted in every person’s soul, even though this particular occasion pales in comparison to what is yet to come.
A far more dreadful indication of such indifference comes later and continues to resurface throughout the book. When discussing the mass executions or other crimes committed by the Nazis, Elie points out that the perpetrators demonstrated no feelings. Moishe the Beadle, a Jew who had miraculously survived the execution, mentions that the soldiers forced Jews to did their own graves and then shot them “without passion or hate.” As Elie himself discovers soon enough, this was not a figure of speech devised to convince the Jews of Sighet to emigrate before it is too late. After arriving at the concentration camp, one of the first things that he notices is that the SS guard speaks “quietly, indifferently, without emotion.” Whatever the cruelties committed, Nazis deliver them dispassionately, as if torturing and killing people is an ordinary job. By describing Nazis as acting without hate or anger, Elie points out how even the most atrocious crimes may become ordinary in the people’s eyes. This ability to reduce fellow humans to less-than-persons and, as a result, ignore their suffering is an evil that easily finds its way out, given the opportunity.
However, killing people without any emotional reaction is not the only manifestation of this dispassionate indifference to the suffering of fellow humans. A particularly chilling example comes when Elie is told to visit the dentist’s office in the concentration camp. The reason behind this order is not the concern for the inmates’ well-being: the dentist is “not looking for decay but for gold teeth.” Those with the gold crowns are listed and designated for the removal. Even though the forceful removal of golden crowns might not seem too frightful as compared to mass executions, it becomes the more disquieting, the more one thinks about it. The very idea of stripping the inmates of everything that might be recycled, such as precious metals in dental prostheses, demonstrates how they were looked upon. Dehumanization of the inmates goes so far that they are not perceived as integral living beings – only as sums of their parts, some of which might be useful and should be recovered. It is easy to ignore one’s suffering when one is not perceived as a human – and this easiness is the evil Alie never stops to remind about.
Each time it seems that the evils inherent in humanity could not find a more dire manifestation, the narrative challenges this assumption and offers yet another example. While the Nazi crimes are atrocious – all the more so due to the dispassionate manner they are committed in – they are, at the very least, the actions of an open enemy. Yet, as Elie points out, the camp personnel are not the only ones to beware, as one’s fellow inmates may easily prove just as dangerous and hostile. As mentioned above, Elie is able to save his gold crown from extraction in the dentist’s office – but only for another inmate named Franek to demand it, He even resorts to threats: “If you don’t give me your crown, it will cost you much more.” Franek’s example demonstrates that inmates are ready to harm each other if it increases their chances of survival, no matter how slightly. It shows that the indifference to other’s suffering and the willingness to perceive people as resources rather than persons is an inherent part of the human soul and, given the opportunity, may manifest in anyone.
As one can see, Night by Elie Wiesel reveals the many evils inherent in human nature and shows how they, more often than not, stem from a single source. This source is the indifference to other people’s suffering rooted in the unwillingness to perceive them as persons or even living beings. The Jews of Sighet pay scant attention to the deportation of their brethren and easily forget their fate as long as they are not threatened themselves. The Nazis commit even the most atrocious crimes dispassionately because they have long ceased to perceive their inmates as humans – instead, they view them as mere constellations of potentially usable parts. Even the inmates themselves are perfectly willing to harm each other if it means increasing their chances of survival ever so slightly. No one is immune to this evil and, by pointing it out, Night demonstrates with the utmost clarity that the tragedy of the Holocaust is not simply a matter of bad people against good people. Rather, it is a cautionary tale that demonstrates how easily humanity may succumb to the evils that lurk beneath the thin veneer of propriety and humaneness.