The Lies They Told

What was your awareness of eugenics in America before reading The Lies They Told? Why do you think so many people today are unfamiliar with it?

Lena and her family sell everything they own for a chance at a better life in America, despite the knowledge that if they’re deported, they will return home to nothing. Do you know the circumstances of your ancestors’ emigration to America?

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established the Eugenics Record Office, or ERO, a research laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans and carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines, and whole peoples. Do you think people today would willingly fill out a questionnaire about their families handed out by a research laboratory? Would you? Why or why not?

What was your awareness of the testing done on Ellis Island before reading The Lies They Told? Do you think it was too strict? Not strict enough? Do you think it was unfair?

After being put through numerous physical examinations and IQ tests on Ellis Island, Lena and her daughter are sent to Hoffman Island to be deloused, where they are instructed to strip naked and sprayed with chemicals. Had you ever heard of Hoffman Island and the process that was used there to get rid of lice? Did the description of the shower chambers remind you of anything?

When Lena’s brother Enzo is labeled “feebleminded,” one of the immigration inspectors threatens to send him to the Psychopathic Pavilion for the rest of his life. Were you aware that Ellis Island had a psychiatric ward, a maternity hospital, an isolation ward, and a contagious disease hospital? Were you aware that thousands of immigrants were detained and died on Ellis Island?

When Lena finds out her mother and brother are being deported, she has to decide whether or not to stay in the U.S. How do you think motherhood influenced Lena’s decision? If she had been childless, do you think she would have tried harder to go back to Germany with her mother and brother or do you think she would have stayed in the U.S.? What would you have done in her situation?

When Lena learns Bonnie and Jack Henry have been instructed to hide if the sheriff or any strangers come around, Lena wonders if she and Ella would be safer somewhere else, even though she has no idea where she could go. At another point in the story, she thinks about running away. If Lena had found a way to leave Wolfe Hollow, what do you think would have happened to her? Where do you think she would have gone? Do you think she would have been better off or worse?

Numerous mountain children who were photographed by Arthur Rothstein ended up in the Virginia State Colony, where many of them would be forcibly sterilized. Some of the children were committed just days after Rothstein photographed them. The photographs were printed free of charge in newspapers across the country to convince the public that the mountain people would be better off if they were relocated. Can you think of other instances when media has used photographs to sway public opinion?

In 1928, Virginia passed the Public Park Condemnation Act, which took 200,000 acres from landowners and farmers and donated it to the federal government to establish the Shenandoah National Park. Did you realize mountain families were displaced to form Shenandoah National Park? Do you know anyone who was affected by the formation of the park? How do you think it made them feel? How would you feel if someone took your home from you? Do you think it was right for the government to evict 2,800 people for the park? Do you think it could have been handled differently?

Throughout history, there have been stories about people committing suicide after losing everything—their homes, their jobs, their families. And unless you’ve experienced something similar, it’s hard to understand how someone could feel that desperate. Were you surprised by what Silas did after the state took his children, burned down his house, and stole his land? What do you think you would have done in that situation?

Some efforts were made to resettle mountain families according to their abilities and aspirations. Do you think all the mountain people should have been allowed to stay in the park? Why or why not?

Were you shocked to learn about the link between the eugenics movement in America and the Nazi program to murder Jewish people and anyone else who did not fit Hitler’s ideal? Why do you think Hitler was able to take eugenics concepts to the extreme? Do you think the war had anything to do with it?