Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany
by Hans J. Massaquoi
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Book Summary Information
Author: Hans J. MassaquoiEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-02-06
ISBN: 0060959614
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany
Book Review: Discerning account of experiences from a dramatic epoch
Summary: 5 Stars
Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi has succeeded in retrieving from that repository of interwoven perpetuity and evanescence called memory a realistic and plausible account of that era of his life which encompassed the Third Reich in Germany. His paternal grandfather was the Liberian consulate in Hamburg during the Weimar Republic when Germany was endeavouring to make up for the loss of their African colonies under the Treaty of Versailles by courting Liberia as a possible gateway to Africa and its raw materials. His father was a student in Trinity College, Dublin who met Massaquoi's mother, a nurse, during a spell in hospital while visiting Hamburg. Hans-Jürgen lived in his grandfather's house with his mother in the initial years and was treated regally by all. When the Massaquoi clan left for Liberia in the wake of some political turmoil back home Hans-Jürgen and his mother were left to fend for themselves in Hamburg. And this is where the story really begins. They moved to a small rented apartment in a working class area and his mother had to go back earning a living.Children can make victimised children's lives a misery at the best of times (in fact, children who are victimised by other children are probably the least legally protected species on the planet) and Hans-Jürgen's skin colour was an inevitable target for the other children. It wasn't blanket racism though and he made quite a few friends and allies in school and in the neighbourhood and was popular with many who knew him. With his courageous mother to sustain his pluckiness of character, Massaquoi was never driven to state of hopeless victimhood and always tried to make the best of every situation. He took up boxing, for example, and that gained him respect for obvious reasons.
The situation deteriorated markedly however when Hitler came to power and the Nuremberg Laws were enacted. Having already constantly run the gauntlet of potential and even probable discrimination he was now faced with state sponsored and legally secured racism.
The catastrophic phenomenon of the Third Reich has been studied and analysed by innumerable historians and others over the years but the final rationalisation as to the how and the why has never conclusively been provided.
At the pinnacle of Nazi power there was a powerful superstructure of Hitlerism and a big network of little Hitlers forming the infrastructure. Massaquoi describes the many little Hitlers who made his life at times a precarious hell. There were fanatics among them but very many were also opportunists and hitherto nonentities who were more than willing to discard scruples for personal advancement and the chance to live out their base instincts with impunity. The rest of the populace were frequently inconsistent in their attitude with most of them going with the flow of events given the coercive nature of the regime. They were often mesmerised by the `Evil Entertainer' who organised a multitude of activities, events and stirring pageants to intoxicate the masses. Sometimes they were indifferent and even recalcitrant but due to the lack of any mass organised resistance there were no factors of any consequence to hinder the Nazis. Such are the mechanisms in a dictatorship. Hitler's cerebral pathology and the perverion of German efficiency and obedience to authority to serve evil purposes were the factors which gave the Third Reich its chillingly diabolical character and made possible such historical crimes as the Holocaust.
Massaquoi himself was caught up in the fever and wanted to join the HJ (Hitler Youth) and the Wehrmacht like everybody else. His rejection in both cases on racist grounds left him with no illusions as to the character of the regime. He survived the war, including the firestorm during Operation Gomorrah carried out by the RAF, while working in various jobs in his native Hamburg.
In spite of his experiences under the Nazis and the fact that he was liberated from them by the Allies he never succumbed to a simplistic Weltbild (view of the world) that might have been implicitly expected of him, so to speak, out of gratitude. He soon discerned that the motives of his liberators were not entirely the declared idealistic and altruistic ones. The racialism of the Allies, albeit a more refined and ingrained variation than what he was used to, disillusioned him even further. Nevertheless, all this did not confuse or disconcert him as to his life's dream of emigrating to the USA. He eventually succeeded in doing this by a circuitous route via Liberia where the injustices in the land of his father and forefathers were also to come under his incorruptible scrutiny.
This book is an important part of the jigsaw puzzle for anyone endeavouring to understand the era involved. To be highly recommended is also Alan Bullock's "Hitler & Stalin. Parallel Lives" which lays out and analyses the historical panorama. For anyone who can read the German language Sebastian Hafner's "Geschichte eines Deutschen" and "Mein Leben" by Marcel Reich-Ranicki, a Jew who survived the Warsaw Ghetto and is now the doyen of German literary critics, will provide a view from people outside the political arena.
Summary of Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany
This is a story of the unexpected.In Destined to Witness, Hans Massaquoi has crafted a beautifully rendered memoir -- an astonishing true tale of how he came of age as a black child in Nazi Germany. The son of a prominent African and a German nurse, Hans remained behind with his mother when Hitler came to power, due to concerns about his fragile health, after his father returned to Liberia. Like other German boys, Hans went to school; like other German boys, he swiftly fell under the Fuhrer's spell. So he was crushed to learn that, as a black child, he was ineligible for the Hitler Youth. His path to a secondary education and an eventual profession was blocked. He now lived in fear that, at any moment, he might hear the Gestapo banging on the door -- or Allied bombs falling on his home. Ironic,, moving, and deeply human, Massaquoi's account of this lonely struggle for survival brims with courage and intelligence.
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