CYIL 2012

SŁAWOMIR REDO

CYIL 3 (2012)

crime or mental retardation. In Richard Dougdale’s 10 seven-generation study (1875) of more than 1,000 descendants of the woman he called Ada Jukes (whom he dubbed the “mother of criminals”), he found 280 paupers, 60 habitual thieves, 7 murderers, 140 other criminals, 40 persons with venereal diseases, and 50 prostitutes. Henry H. Goddard 11 in a six-generation study (1912) of the Kallikak family found that their members who were related to the illegitimate son of Martin Kallikak had more criminals than did descendants of Martin’s latter marriage with a women from a “good” family. Both studies were bestsellers which bolstered the advocacy of eugenics. They demonstrated that traits deemed socially inferior could be passed down from one generation to another. In the United States, the interest in Goddard’s study came at a time when that country was experiencing a large influx of immigrants from Europe. The Immigration Restriction Act , passed in 1924 (which remained in effect until 1965), was influenced by the proponents of eugenics (although he did not favour immigration restrictions by national origin 12 ). The result was that many immigrants were turned away and sent back to Europe. In Germany, Die Familie Kallikak was first printed in 1914. It supported earlier German eugenic works criticized for their tenor by Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit), 13 the Polish-Jewish pedagogue (author of “ How to Love a Child 14 ) . In 1942 he and his children fell victim to the Holocaust in a Nazi concentration camp. 15 Goddard’s book was reprinted in 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power. 16 In the United States eugenics ultimately failed to explain how genes were behind the social problems it sought to solve. 17 However, the discussion on genes’ individual criminogenic relevance is far from over. 10 Richard Louis Dougdale, The Jukes : a Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity , New York Prison Association report (1875), republished in 1877 together with his Further Studies of Criminals. 11 Henry Goddard, The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness. MacMillan, New York, 1912. 12 Zenderland, L., Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing, The University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2001, p. 264. 13 Jörger, J. Die Familie Zero, Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschafts-Biologie, einschließlich Rassen- und Gesellschafts-Hygiene , 1905, pp. 494-500. 14 How to Love a Child ( Jakkochaćdziecko ), Warszawa 1919, 2nd edition (1920) as Jakkochaćdzieci, or How to Love Children ), in English: How to Love a Child. The Inspirational Words by Janusz Korczak , ed. By Sandra Joseph (http://fcit.usf.edu/Holocaust/korczak/books/english/how.htm), and reedited by Sandra Josephs, as A Voice for the Child: The Inspirational Words of Janusz Korczak , Thorsons, London, 1999. 15 Falkowska, M. (ed.), Myśl pedagogiczna Janisza Korczaka. Nowe Źródła , Warszawa, Nasza Księgarnia 1983, pp. 342-343. 16 But he neither intended for his book to be connected with Hitler, Nazism, and the Holocaust nor with the asserted notion of the “final solution” by “a lethal chamber”, which he rejected. He also rejected narrow nationalism and promoted pacifism (Zenderland, op.cit., p. 334). 17 Eugenics, Forced Sterilization, the Holocaust, and the Gene Age www.dnai.org/e/index.html?m=1,3.

160