BLACK GERMAN HOLOCAUST VICTIMS

So much of our history is lost to us because we, African-Americans often
don't write the history books, don't film the documentaries, or don't pass
the accounts down from generation to generation.

One documentary now touring the film festival circuit, telling us to "Always
Remember" is "Black Survivors of the Holocaust" (1997). Outside the U.S..,
the film is entitled "Hitler's Forgotten Victims" (Afro-Wisdom Productions)
. It codifies another dimension to the "Never Forget" Holocaust story--our
dimension.

 Did you know that in the 1920's, there were 24,000 Blacks living in
Germany? Neither did I. Here's how it happened, and how many of them were
eventually caught unawares by the events of the Holocaust.

 Like most West European nations, Germany established colonies in Africa in
the late 1800's in what later became Togo, Cameroon, Namibia, and Tanzania.
German genetic experiments began there, most notably involving prisoners
taken from the 1904 Heroro Massacre that left 60,000 Africans dead,
following a 4-year revolt against German colonization. After the shellacking
Germany received in World War I, it was stripped of its African colonies in
1918.

  As a spoil of war, the French were allowed to occupy Germany in the
Rhineland--a bitter piece of real estate that has gone back and forth
between the two nations for centuries. The French willfully deployed their
own colonized African soldiers as the occupying force. Germans viewed this
as the final insult of World War I, and soon thereafter, 92% of them voted
the Nazi party into power.

  Hundreds of the African Rhineland-based soldiers intermarried with German
women and raised their children as Black Germans. In Mein Kampf, Hitler
wrote about his plans for these "Rhineland Bastards." When he came to power,
one of his first directives was aimed at these mixed-race children.
Underscoring Hitler's obsession with racial purity, by 1937, every
identified mixed-race child in the Rhineland had been forcibly sterilized,
in order to prevent further 'race polluting,' as Hitler termed it.

  Hans Hauck, a Black Holocaust survivor and a victim of Hitler's mandatory
sterilization program, explained in the film "Hitler's Forgotten Victims"
that, when he was forced to undergo sterilization as a teenager, he was
given no anesthetic. Once he received his sterilization certificate, he was
"free to go" so long as he agreed to have no sexual relations whatsoever
with Germans.

  Although most Black Germans attempted to escape their fatherland, heading
for France where people like Josephine Baker were steadily aiding and
supporting the French Underground, many still encountered problems
elsewhere. Nations shut their doors to Germans, including the Black ones.

  Some Black Germans were able to eke out a living during Hitler's reign of
terror by performing in Vaudeville shows, but many Blacks, steadfast in
their belief that they were German first and Black second, opted to remain
in Germany. Some fought with the Nazis (a few even became Luftwaffe pilots).
Unfortunately, many Black Germans were arrested, charged with treason, and
shipped in cattle cars to concentration camps. Often these trains were so
packed with people and (equipped with no bathroom facilities or food) that,
after the four-day journey, box car doors were opened to piles of the dead
and dying.

  Once inside the concentration camps, Blacks were given the worst jobs
conceivable. Some Black American soldiers, who were captured and held as
prisoners of war, recounted that, while they were being starved and forced
into dangerous labor (violating the Geneva Convention), they were still
better off than Black German concentration camp detainees, who were forced
to do the unthinkable- -man the crematoriums and work in labs where genetic
experiments were being conducted. As a final sacrifice, these Blacks were
killed every three months so that they would never be able to reveal the
inner workings of the "Final Solution."

  In every story of Black oppression, no matter how we were enslaved,
shackled, or beaten, we always found a way to survive and to rescue others.
As a case in point, consider Johnny Voste, a Belgian resistance fighter who
was arrested in 1942 for alleged sabotage and then shipped to Dachau. One of
his jobs was stacking vitamin crates. Risking his own life, he distributed
hundreds of vitamins to camp detainees, which saved the lives of many who
were starving, weak, and ill--conditions exacerbated by extreme vitamin
deficiencies. His motto was "No, you can't have my life; I will fight for
it."

  According to Essex University's Delroy Constantine- Simms, there were
Black Germans who resisted Nazi Germany, such as Lari Gilges, who founded
the Northwest Rann--an organization of entertainers that fought the Nazis in
his home town of Dusseldorf-- and who was murdered by the SS in 1933, the
year that Hitler came into power.

  Little information remains about the numbers of Black Germans held in the
camps or killed under the Nazi regime. Some victims of the Nazi
sterilization project and Black survivors of the Holocaust are still alive
and telling their story in films such as "Black Survivors of the Nazi
Holocaust," but they must also speak out for justice, not just history.

  Unlike Jews (in Israel and in Germany), Black Germans, although
German-born, have received no war reparations because their German
citizenship was revoked. The only pension they get is from those of us who
are willing to tell the world their stories and continue their battle for
recognition and compensation.

  After the war, scores of Blacks who had somehow managed to survive the
Nazi regime, were rounded up and tried as war criminals. Talk about the
final insult! There are thousands of Black Holocaust stories, from the
triangle trade, to slavery in America, to the gas oven s in Germany.

  We often shy away from hearing about our historical past because so much
of it is painful; however, we are in this struggle together for rights,
dignity, and, yes, reparations for wrongs done to us through the centuries.
We need to always remember so that we can take steps to ensure that these
atrocities never happen again.

  For further information, read: Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in
Nazi Germany, by Hans J. Massaquoi.

  PLEASE PASS THIS ON, AND ALWAYS REMEMBER...
  LEST WE FORGET!

  There are a few books on this topic, but the book mentioned in this post
can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Destined-Witness-Growing-Black-Germany/dp/0060959614


Additional info: I found a wikipage of African Russians! Did you know that
Alexander Pushkin's great grandfather was from Ethiopia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African-Russians

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