Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age (Edwin Black). Eugenics is the study and practice of selective breeding, usually in regard to humans, with hope to improve the species. However, it was used by the Nazis during the Holocaust as an excuse for the extermination of millions. Two poems, “A Poem of Death” by George Macbeth and “Perhaps” by Rajzel Zychlinska can help one understand the feelings caused during the Holocaust and by the torture inflicted by the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele, who played a huge role in the Nazi Eugenicist movement during World War II. Repressing individuality by trying to perfect an imperfect human race is impossible and unethical, and the idea of a perfect race is cruel and will bring about fear and indignant feelings
Eugenics specifically is described by Edwin Black as being the “racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype.” A Nordic stereotype being a light-skinned person with blond hair, blue eyes and a tall stature. Edwin Black also writes that eugenics was started when Sir Francis Galton, who was a relative of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people only bred others with talent, their offspring would be greatly improved. When the idea transferred to America along with Mendel's ideas, people believed that along with hereditary genes determining eye and hair color, it would determine the intellect and talent of man. These ideas became popular in America during the early 1900's, and the years before and during World War II, Adolf Hitler, having studied American Eugenics, adopted the ideas. Dr. Mengele, a German SS officer and a physician in Nazi concentration camps, also used the idea of science and medicine to excuse his actions. Various American institutions supported the Nazis' goal, including the Rockefeller Foundation.
This affected the Holocaust greatly, because although many Eugenicists wanted to rid the world of the unfit, they never thought anyone would ever try to do it. When Hitler used science and medicine as a reason to exterminate the Jews, along with his other propaganda naming them the reason they lost the Great War, this helped keep the true horrors of the concentration camps from being known. As said before, the Nazis used scientific research as reason to perform cruel experiments on the captives in the camps, including numerous “Jews, Gypsies, Soviet POW's, and other prisoners of all nationalities” (Auschwitz-Birkenau).
Eugenics, although having seemingly good intentions, limits one's ability to be oneself, repressing individuality and disallowing people to be anything but the Nordic stereotype of a blond-haired, blue-eyed, tall white person.
In Macbeth's poem, “A Poem Of Death”, the narrator faces an evil baker, and attempts to stand up to him. Using symbolism and an allusion, one can easily see the connection to the Holocaust.
"And once again the angel of Death came, / this time in the guise of a baker" (1-2). The baker is the "Angel of Death", Dr. Josef Mengele, who was often called an Angel of Death. His "bread" is the people, and his "oven" is the crematorium. Mengele was the leader of the cruel human experiments at Auschwitz, and he was the one who sent most people to their death in the gas chambers or crematoriums. The baker in the poem was shown to be cruel, yet solemn. Generally people who tried to stand up to him were punished harshly, such as a time mentioned in “Auschwitz-Birkenau”, where a mother did not want to be separated from her daughter and scratched him in the face, and ended up getting shot in the face, along with her daughter.
In the poem, the baker is alluded to Janus: - "you remind me of Janus" (14). Janus was a Roman god who had two faces, one looking to the past, and one to the future. This implies that the baker is stuck between two transitioning worlds, or due to Janus' role as a god of doorways, could imply his role as the gatekeeper who chose who lived and who died. Janus, the Roman god, had two faces: one looking to the past and one to the future. He was often used to symbolize change, the growing up of young people, and the progression of one era to another. Janus was the god of beginnings, and of endings, so this could also be used to show how Mengele ended lives, and began new, harsh, ones.
The second poem, “Perhaps” by Rajzel Zychlinska, is most likely about the feelings of prisoners in the camps, who are haunted by the implication they are worth less because they are not “German”, and fearful of Josef Mengele. Repetition and imagery paint a picture of the inside turmoil of being a captive.
First, imagery describes Dr. Mengele: "a cold stare of knives. / A chuckle manufactured and fake, / suddenly stirred the horror awake –" (8-10). These lines help describe what sort of person Mengele is, and show him to be cruel and frightening. Mengele did many cruel experiments on people at the camps. He was often described with fear if the person had lived through his experiments, despite the better treatment they received under his care, such as an incident described where he had a family of dwarfs under his care and they talked about him with fear, even though all of them survived. Perla Ovitz, one of the dwarfs, was noted saying “I was saved by the grace of the Devil”, which voiced the sentiment of the entire group (Yehuda Koren).
Repetition is also used in the poem: "Deutsch, Deutsch, Deutsch"-- (22). The repetition of "Deutsch", which is "German" in the German language, emphasizes how important it was to be German during Nazi reign. Emphasizing the importance of being German, or more specifically, being "Aryan" (or better known in the Eugenicist world as 'Nordic') is shown in this poem. During Nazi reign, one of their goals was to create a master race of Germans. Since this idea was repeated into the minds of the German people, it is also important in the poem.
The poetry shows the fear and indignant feelings caused by the attitude of Nazis like Hitler and Mengele who tried to justify their genocide with a pseudoscience. They show how people felt about the injustice, and how no matter what, no one could exterminate an entire race, due to the overall strength of mankind. However, history will repeat itself if people do not learn from old mistakes. In order to prevent a tragedy like this again, we must learn and study the horrors of the Holocaust, and the horrors of human experimentation hiding behind a veneer of a pseudoscience.
Repressing individuality by trying to perfect an imperfect human race is impossible and unethical. No race is superior to another, despite what any pseudo-scientist would want to believe, and even if someone tried to do so, people would stand up to such injustice, and even risk their lives to preserve natural rights to life. Race has no bearing on the weight of human worth. And as a Chinese idiom says, “It does not matter if the cat is black or white. If it catches mice, it is a good cat.”
