The Holocaust in Nazi Germany was, in its most basic roots, the mass murder of millions of Jews within Germany and all countries conquered by Germany for the duration of the Second World War. While the main figures behind this mass execution had no doubts about the value of this act, the actual executioners faced internal struggles to understand their duty. Although Germany was an anti-Semitic country for much of its history, the fact remained that these executioners killed people with whom they had lived all their lives. As a result of this guilt, the Nazi commune charged with executing the Jewish people would be forced to begin a complete transformation to come to terms with the work they were completing. Maxine Kumin with her poem "Marmots" aptly represents the transformation, from contrition to gratification, experienced by a Nazi soldier as he executed a seemingly innumerable number of Jews through the use of various literary devices including allusions, imagery and diction. Kumin uses allusions in multiple areas to set the scene in a World War II environment, making the understanding of the poem's final point increasingly evident. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first use of these allusions is found in the first two lines of the poem with its reference to the “knockout bomb,” prompting its audience to remember the fire bombings used by the American military on various Japanese cities. Similar to the poem, the firebombing did not achieve the objective the military hoped to achieve, a parallel to the farmer who attempted to gas the marmots with cyanide to no avail. This caused the US military to deem it acceptable to use a much more brutal weapon with little to no humanity, a direct comparison to the farmer who immediately decided that the rifle was his only option in the scenario. In the same stanza Kumin goes on to draw similarities between marmots and Jews in Nazi Germany by detailing their ability to escape with "they had an underground out of reach." Stories of multiple Holocaust victims had become widespread by the time this poem was written, especially among American poets. The most notable of these stories included those of those who hid in attics, floorboards, and basements—exactly what groundhogs are said to hide in. This creates the second alignment between the point of view of the farmer and that of the Nazi soldier when faced with the task of killing what were considered "pests". In this comparison is clearly represented the idea that the Jews were not people, but only irritants, which the Nazi soldier so desperately wants to see in order to be freed from the guilt resulting from these mass murders. Kumin further delves into the similarity between Nazi Soldiers and the farmer, with his final allusion to World War II, within the final line of the poem, with a direct comparison to Nazi tactics, "gassed underground in silent Nazi fashion", which it directly puts the idea of ​​a Nazi soldier into the audience's mind. Using this allusion in the final line Kumine pushes the audience towards his goal with his poem through the use of the word Nazi allowing the reader to make a connection and understand the journey of a Nazi executioner. Kumine Future describes the journey through his use of imagery when talking about killing marmots. Kumin.”