Dehumanization and Resistance in Holocaust Literature

Humanization and Its Opposite

"The man dangled on the gallows, and suddenly the world around me was no longer the same. I felt a strange sensation in my throat as if I were choking. I could picture myself on the gallows…" What Gotfryd describes as a visceral reaction to an execution represents humanization: the ability to identify with strangers to the extent that empathy becomes shared emotions and sensations. To feel the sensation of choking while watching another person perish at the gallows means identifying so fully with that human being that there is no gap between the self and the other. All human beings are connected. All are one. Caring, empathy, sharing, and respect are part of the universal human experience.

Dehumanization entails the opposite. Dehumanization means detaching from humanity, becoming frozen, cold, unable to feel for the suffering endured by fellow human beings. The person who dehumanizes others has already dehumanized the self. By cutting oneself off from humanity, the individual denies that which binds human beings together. The process of dehumanization therefore begins with the dehumanization of the self.

Even Gotfryd is willing to humanize his captors, recognizing their gradual or partial detachment from the prisoners and acknowledging the Nazis' occasional "respect" — real or imagined — for rebellious prisoners. Gotfryd suggests that the process of dehumanization occurs gradually and incrementally; it can occur in degrees. In This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Tadeusz Borowski illustrates the process and the effects of dehumanization. Prisoners themselves become perpetrators; in being dehumanized, they begin the process of dehumanizing others. Wishing for Nazis to die, or participating in the death of Nazis, are themselves dehumanizing acts: "I should like to slaughter one or two men, just to throw off the concentration camp mentality." Becoming deadened to suffering and numb to pain is one of the end results of being dehumanized.

The Mechanics of Dehumanization

Dehumanization occurs first when the dehumanizer detaches the self from the rest of humanity. That detachment depends on the creation of in-groups and out-groups. Rigid lines must be drawn between that which is human and that which is not, between "us" and "them," between captor and prisoner. Nazi ideology was based on sharp demarcations between groups, enabling dehumanization to a degree rarely witnessed in human history.

The Jews bore by far the greatest brunt of the dehumanization policy that underwrote Nazi ideology. Borowski notes, "Aryans had stopped being sent to the gas chambers — except for special cases. From then on only Jews were gassed en masse." Integral to the process and experience of dehumanization, therefore, is the development of a cognitive schema that allows for strict demarcations between valuable and disposable human beings. Jews were categorically dismissed, dehumanized, devalued, and deemed dead.

Works Cited

Borowski, Tadeusz, Barbara Vedder, Jan Kott, and Michael Kandel. This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. Penguin, 1976.

"The Girl from Auschwitz." From the Black Book. Eds. Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman. New York: Holocaust Library.

Gotfryd, Bernard. "The Execution," "Hans Burger: #15252," and "The Last Camp." Anton the Dove Fancier and Other Tales of the Holocaust. Washington Square, 1990.

Hamburger, Michael. "Treblinka." In Schiff, Hilda, ed. Holocaust Poetry. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995.

Fogel, Ephraim. "Shipment to Maidanek." In Schiff, Hilda, ed. Holocaust Poetry. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995.

Schiff, Hilda. "Babii Yar." Holocaust Poetry. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995.

Tsirolnitsky, M. "Twenty-Six Months in Auschwitz." The Black Book. Eds. Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman. New York: Holocaust Library.

Zyck, Adam. "Auschwitz, 1987." In Schiff, Hilda, ed. Holocaust Poetry. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1995.