"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it" (Hitler). Totalitarianism was exposed in World War II as a system that annihilates any trace of human individuality by indoctrination; this is with the final goal of justifying any atrocity: everything is possible. As Arendt says in her essay of Total Domination, "the fundamental belief [and] () and total domination () is possible only if each and every person can be reduced to a never-changing identity of reactions, so that each of these bundles of reactions can be exchange at random for any other" (124). By the poetry elements of imagery, organization, and theme in the poem of Niemöller "First They Came for the Jews" and imagery in Gershon's poem "Race"; Arendt describes how totalitarianism effects are exposed, emphasizing the importance of diversity and tolerance in society. .
Niemöller's poem echoes the total domination effects in society, as Arendt's work points, by the lack of imagery, organization, and theme; showing how essential are the understanding and diversity among people. The adjective absence describes a lack of feeling expression, the words in the poem "came" "did not speak" " I was not " in lines 2,5, and 8 (Niemöller) and the monotonous repetition of them, shows absence of character, personality, and creativity. All these elements are manifestation of total domination because by the lack of them prove isolation which is an essential in total domination. As Arendt says, "The camps are meant () to exterminate people and degrade human beings () eliminating () spontaneity itself as an expression of human behavior and of transforming the human personality into a mere thing" (124). Thus, this image particularly presents a clear impression of one of the intentions of the poem: in a total domination state there is no place for spontaneity.
