summary book "crying hand", Summaries of Literature

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Ngan Vu

C. Don Breidenthal

ASL Book Report

Crying Hands: Eugenics and Deaf People in Nazi Germany Crying Hands was copyrighted in 1999 and written by Horst Biesold who is a retired professor and teacher of deaf students. The are two reasons why I pick this book. First, the title of the book attracts me since my instructor wrote on the board and evoking my desire to understand the situations of deaf people under Nazi regime. The second reason is that I want to know how the despair of deaf people under the that time as well as the cruel consequences that deaf people suffered were hidden for long time.

Biesold mentioned several aspects in the book and there are four aspects that I will explore in the following essay.

The most appalling aspect was deaf educators informed their own deaf students to the Health authority which forced them to be sterilized. The person who influenced deeply to fellow eugenicists that Biesold mention was Gotthold Lehmann. Gotthold Lehmann is the main teacher in the teaching program during the Nazi regime. His mission was selecting suitable candidates with political thinking aligned with National Socialism and the calling for sterilization laws. Director Wegge, Bewer, Edwin Singer, Oskar Ronigk, Heidbrede and so on were mentioned in the book turned over their own students and forced them to be sterilized. Deaf Institution was the place for students had same condition. They attended to school to learn the way communicate with the world and finding their protection in there. However, they had to suffer not only physically but also mentally when being sterilized without consent at young age. For them, they had no choice for their own fates.

Second, deaf was caused by genetic transmission account for small percentage. Before I took ASL class as well as reading this book, I thought that deafness was hereditary. I was completely wrong. Deafness couldn’t conclude only base on “between dominant and recessive, hereditary and possibly adventitious deafness” (Biesold 32). Seidenberg also noted that without the information of medical as well as individual history, there was not sure to diagnose the cause

of deafness. There were several causes of deaf – mute such as accident, exposing to loud noise birth defect and so on. Identifying the cause is the necessary step to conclude a person whether hereditary deafness or not.

Third, deaf women was force to terminate their pregnancies infuriated me immensely. As I stated in the previous aspect, deafness may not be caused by hereditary. Forcing abortions is the cruel action under the Nazi regime. I consider it as the killing of innocent human, contrary to the humanitarian value of humanity. Unborn children cannot be identified as the deaf because a deaf mother definitely could have healthy child. Besides, abortion also caused some complications for deaf mothers and more dangerous as fetus growing up.

Lastly, I admire individuals who stand up for countering the sterilization law.