kabir,

This is an amazing story, and yet another manifestation of the hypocricy and evil designs black people have been subjected to. It used to be slavery , then colonialism and now this. When are we going to stop shedding tears? And how comes not much has ever been said or mentioned about the fate of black people in Hitler`s Germany? We`ve not been taught about that in any detail neither in European nor African history, have we? On the contrary, we know what happened to Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. This tells us something about how our sufferings are always been downgraded.

And talking about reparations, it is unfortunate all that these victims have to go through to put up a case. However, it is not surprising . We are yet to see reparations for the slave trade, and the era of colonialism. Europe has robbeb us of almost everrything, made our grandparents fight wars that they actually never understood, and robbed their children the opportunity to enjoy and cherish a father-figure, a role model and a provider. Most of them perished , and those who were "lucky" to return home arrived only with baggages full of memories. Whenever you talk to them they will them you about Burma and Empire Day, but they are disillusioned with shattered dreams. And these men were brave and gallant fighters! European war veterans are treated with dignity and respect, and it is no big surprise either that our war veterans never received any reparations. Remember, the prisoners of war received a far better treatment!

There are lessons to be learned here, and what we need is more unity amongst ourselves and putting away our petty differences. We`re seeing freedom and if we believe in it, we can always acheive it. We dont need help from people who are only after safeguarding their personal interests. We can do it so lets go for it.

Regards,
Omar.


Fra: Amadu Kabir Njie <[log in to unmask]>
Til: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Dato: 3. oktober 1999 01:53
Emne: Forgotten: Black victims of Hitler's Germany


 
            OCTOBER 1999
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             CONGO 
            COVER STORY   
Forgotten: Black victims of Hitler's Germany
            Considered to be an impure race, they were forcibly sterilised, stripped of their citizenship and forced into labour camps. Yet today, complex legal procedures and insensitivity by the German government are hindering black victims of Hitler's atrocities from claiming compensation like their Jewish counterparts. Regina Jere-Malanda reports.
            The hue and cry for compensation is bearing fruit for Jews and other European victims of Nazi Germany. But Adolf Hitler's morbid obsession with 'purity' and superiority of the Aryan race, also severely hit and damaged a significant number of black people who lived in Germany at the time. Just like the Jews, Germany's then 25,000-strong black population was a number one target of the Nazi Nuremberg laws of 15 September 1935 which called for "the protection of German blood and German honour".

            But while multi-billion dollar funds have been set up to compensate the Jews, the plight of Hitler's black victims has largely been ignored.

            Their stories are harrowing, yet are the least written about and hardly discussed at any forums. Even a thorough search on the famed World Wide Web (Internet) yields no match on the subject.

            Few people know that out of the almost 25,000 black people in Germany at the time, a considerable number was sterilised under Hitler's orders. This was to prevent them from making German women pregnant in case they disobeyed the 1935 laws that forbade inter-racial sex. A child born to such a couple was considered 'impure' or not German enough. 

            This view was based on a misguided extension of Darwinism borrowed from an equally disturbed 19th century German thinker, Ernest Haeckel, who described human evolution in racial terms. His theories on eugenics (genetic traits) were aimed at giving racism scientific legitimacy. This became part of the pseudo-scientific basis and fodder for the Nazis' racial hygiene theories. 

            "Some of us were lucky we were only victims of sterilisation and not euthanasia," one victim, Hans Hauck said in a TV documentary broadcast earlier this year by Britain's Channel 4. The documentary was put together by AfroWisdom Films, a London-based company owned by the Cameroonian, Moise Shewa.

            Like many others who suffered the same fate, Hauck had no anaesthetic when the "operation" was done. Once it was over, he was given a sterilisation certificate and made to sign an agreement "not to have sexual relations whatsoever with Germans."

            Other distressed survivors, such as Theodore Michael, say they are lucky to be alive because life under Hitler was "unbearable".

            "It wasn't easy. Not only were we declared persona non grata, but we were not wanted anywhere," Michael told New African.

            A talented actor born to a Cameroonian father and German mother, Michael was stripped of his German citizenship. He was orphaned and separated from the rest of his family at a very young age. While some of his family members managed to escape to France, he was sent to a Nazi labour camp where he was freed by Russian soldiers after the War. 

            "When they found me, they were surprised to see a black man still alive. I came out with nothing. Only a pair of shoes and trousers are all I possessed," he says.

            Today, Michael, 74, lives in the German city of Cologne where he has rebuilt his life. He believes compensation for Nazi brutality is worth fighting for, but quickly points out how a maze of complicated legal procedures and demands makes it almost impossible to claim.

            Most black Germans were stripped of their citizenship, thus complicating further their fight for compensation. Yet, Germany's restitution law was made to "ensure the unconditional return of all property (goods and rights) which were taken from persons who had been subjected to discrimination and persecution by the Nazi regime."

            Says Michael: "Most black victims have just given up because it is very hard for us to prove that we are entitled to compensation. The Federal Compensation Law is very complicated."

            Indeed, the ridiculous web of bureaucratic rules and complex legal procedures that black victims (most of them now well advanced in age) have to go through to claim compensation, is a put off.

            For example, victims of sterilisation have been asked to produce extensive documentation to prove their suffering (in this case, sterilisation certificates and other medical documents to back the physical damage). Physical evidence alone is not enough. Why the authorities expect victims of such indelible harm to keep documents that remind them of their suffering, numbs the mind. 

            "In Germany nothing gets off the ground without papers," says Michael. "Most of the victims did not keep these documents and this is now a major problem. Who would have thought he would need his [sterilisation] certificate? After the war, all people wanted, was to get on with their lives."

            Michael, himself, suffered severe physical damage, but he declined to describe it to New African.

            Paulette Reed-Anderson, an American historian in Berlin, told New African that the indifference shown by the German government makes the issue of compensating Hitler's black victims even harder. The restrictive compensation laws do not even categorise who should claim. It is like there was only one group of victims - the Jews. The German government, to this day, refuses to acknowledge the existence of Hitler's black victims and has made no comment on the matter.

            "It is utterly ridiculous," says Reed-Anderson who campaigns for compensation for the black victims. "Some of the victims have been blatantly told they can't claim because only dead victims are real victims. They have been asked, 'How can you say you are a victim, if you are still here and alive?"

            Relatives of victims also have problems in making claims. According to Reed-Anderson, "they cannot claim because the laws say nothing happened to them, they were not persecuted, so why should they be compensated?" 

            As a result, there have been very few success stories of black victims being compensated.

            Another big hurdle put in the way of the blacks are Jews who find it difficult to accept that blacks were as much victims of Hitler's terror as they were.

            Reed-Anderson tells how she and a few other black claimants were forced to leave a conference on compensation because the Jewish delegates made them unwelcome.

            "The message was clear," she says. "Black people were not wanted. The situation was very unpleasant. We had to leave."

            Although both World Wars had considerable impact on Africa and its people in the Diaspora, provision for reparations, under the Treaty of Versailles, is only given to Europeans and Americans. Yet, in both Wars, Africa was an essential source of men and raw material (particularly for the Allies). An estimated 100,000 Africans died of disease, malnutrition and overwork in Allied army camps. Villages were often burnt down while labour was indiscriminately procured. 

            For example, in Egypt, British troops requisitioned Egyptian corn, cotton, camels and labour in its campaign against the German allies in the region during World War I. The Germans, too, in East Africa, recruited their askaris from among Africans, while the British recruited troops in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria.

            During the Second World War, African colonies were once again drawn into the conflict although many did not even understand what it was all about.

            Thousands of troops were sent from French West Africa to defend France from German invasion. Here they suffered heavy casualties and many were captured and imprisoned by the Germans. Here they were segregated from white prisoners, denied food and made to do the most difficult jobs. The Channel 4 documentary, showed appalling pictures of black war prisoners scavenging for food in garbage heaps at one of German's POW camps. It is known that many of them died in such camps.

            One survivor, Johnny William, told the Channel 4 programme: "There were six of us and as soon as we were taken there, we were separated from the white deportees. They considered us to be sub-human, like animals, chimpanzees."

            But Germany's appalling mistreatment of Africans did not begin with the World Wars. Between 1897 and 1904, Germany's racial bigotry had already led to the massacre of 60,000 Hereros in South West Africa (now Namibia). About 80% of the Hereros (see story on p14) were killed by German settlers for fighting against their occupation. Survivors were forced into concentration camps where they were used as guinea pigs in medical experiments by the German geneticist, Eugen Fischer.

            Fischer, who settled in the country, believed there were genetic dangers arising from race mixing between German colonists and African women.

            In March 1998 when German President Roman Herzog visited Namibia, he refused to apologise for the Herero massacre because (in his words) "too much time has passed for a formal apology to the Hereros to make sense." 

            As a result, the Herero's quest for compensation has also been largely ignored by the German government. And, because of the massive aid Namibia gets from its former colonial master, President Sam Nujoma's government has also been apathetic to the plight of the Hereros. The German government argues that no international legislation existed at that time under which ethnic minorities could get reparations. 

            It is time Africa, its leaders and its children in the Diaspora did something big about the reparations question. One day, the perpetrators will listen.

            
            
            Copyright © IC Publications Limited 1999. All rights reserved.