Jordan Alexaus Sutton

Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103-011
February 2, 2016
Aryan Genetic Purity
The topic of the Holocaust that most interests me is anti-Semitism. I particularly want to
focus on the topic of Aryan genetic purity. This topic speaks to me because I feel as if there are
some parts to anti-Semitism that my African American ancestors could relate to. Such things as
being discriminated against because of how you look or what you believe in. I feel that the Jews
had it terrible because of all the killings that were instructed by a man who didnt even look he
way he wanted everyone else to look. I was very shocked to discover that the Polish did nothing
to try to help them.
Before I actually looked into this topic I had only basic knowledge from school, my own
research, or simply just speaking casually about the Holocaust. Knowledge such as Hitler only
wanted people that had blonde hair and blue eyes. I just recently learned that physicians
performed surgeries to make the Jews infertile because Hitler didnt want them to produce any
undesirable human beings. Personally, I couldnt imagine having someone else make the
choice for me to not have children, which is the original feeling that made me want to dig deeper
into this topic. It has always been my dream to have at least two children when I get older, if that
were taken away from me Im not sure I would want to even go on. Other knowledge I have
acquired is the fact that there were many children that were killed inside and outside of the
concentration camps.
Im sure there are plenty of sources I can look into to find a little more background
knowledge on this topic. The first source I could look into would be to of course do a little

Jordan Alexaus Sutton

Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103-011
February 2, 2016
reading on the Holocaust website link that is on moodle. I would like to watch some other
survivor testimonies about women that will never have the opportunity to have children because
of the surgeries. Another angle could be maybe some surgeon/ physician testimonies about these
practices and their feelings about having to conduct these surgeries. Im sure that there were
many other methods of making sure that Jews cant reproduce. I feel that if I were to look a little
deeper into this topic, it will take me further into to the mass killings of the Germans by the
mobile killing squads and maybe even the night of broken glass. I would like to know a little
more about what really happened in these two events because I really only have surface
knowledge. Also, I would like to see if I can find information about experiments Nazis
performed to change eye color to be the pure human beings Hitler wanted. Lastly I would like
to figure out what other kinds of tactics Hitler tried to use to annihilate the Jewish people.
Questions I have would be, did the physicians/surgeons feel any remorse for these poor
Jewish women? Why did Hitler feel that blonde hair and blue eyes were superior to everything
else? When did Hitler feel that the best strategies were to kill all the Jews? Were people able to
hide from the mobile killing squads? A great place to start would be the question of what exactly
makes a person be considered pure or perfect?
Peer Response Reflection
I think that as a peer responder is tried to be very thorough and to the point, while at the
same time giving details on what can be done to make the paper better. After checking the paper
to make sure there was correct spelling and punctuation, I noticed that there were some more

Jordan Alexaus Sutton

Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1103-011
February 2, 2016
questions the writer could incorporate into her paper. The writers area of inquiry was people
who tried to protect and save the Jews. She spoke about how they laid down their lives to save
these people and I struck her with the question who you say some of this could also be said for
todays military?. I proposed this question to try to relate some of what she was saying to
todays day in age. Another aspect of the paper that I assisted with was her background
information. I reminded her of events from the Reva Kibort testimony that was relevant to her
topic. Lastly, The writers inquiry question, in my opinion, could have been taken two different
ways. To assist her with making question a little more understandable I gave her the two ways it
could have been taken and ask which one she was really going for.
All in all, I think as a peer responder I am not too bad, but peer responding was never my
thing. Ive always been the kind of person to way feedback from my instructor. Sometimes my
mind would go to other topics, but when that happened I made sure to reread the paper to unsure
the writer got my best response possible. The guide that was given to help us peer respond more
efficiently was very helpful. I think I may use it for a later date.