Hans massaquoi interview
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Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi’s Childhood (1999)
Abstract
Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi’s (1926–2013) account of his experience as a biracial child in Nazi Germany was published in the original English and in German translation in 1999. In this series of excerpts, Massaquoi reflects on his school years, the Hitler Youth, Jesse Owens, and the 1936 Olympics, among other subjects.
Source
Brief Encounter
One beautiful summer morning in 1934, I arrived at school to hear our third-grade teacher, Herr Grimmelshäuser, inform the class that Herr Wriede, our Schulleiter (principal), had ordered the entire student body and faculty to assemble in the schoolyard. There, dressed as he often was on special occasions in his brown Nazi uniform, Herr Wriede announced that “the biggest moment of [our] young lives” was imminent, that fate had chosen us to be among the lucky ones privileged to behold “our beloved Führer Adolf Hitler” with our own eyes. It was a privilege for which, he assured us, our yet-to-be-born children and children’s children would one day envy us. At the time I was eight years old an
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Hans Massaquoi
Afro-German-American author (1926–2013)
Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi Sr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1926-01-19)January 19, 1926 Hamburg, Weimar Republic |
| Died | January 19, 2013(2013-01-19) (aged 87) Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. |
| Occupation | |
| Language | German, English |
| Citizenship | |
| Notable work | Destined to Witness |
| Children | 2 |
Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi (January 19, 1926 – January 19, 2013[1]) was a German-American journalist and author. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, to a German mother and a Liberian father of Vai ethnicity, the grandson of Momulu Massaquoi, the consul general of Liberia in Germany at the time.
His autobiography Destined to Witness: Growing up Black in Nazi Germany was published in 1999 (in English). Its German translation was published the same year, as Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger: Meine Kindheit in Deutschland. The title references a racist rhyme with which schoolboys taunted him in 1932. The German version was adapted as a film Destined to Witness [de] (2006).[2] He later published a sec
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About the Author
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Works by Hans J Massaquoi
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Reviews
Relatively speaking, there aren't many books about the show more black experience of Nazi Germany out there. I don't wish to offend anyone, but the market of first-hand Holocaust accounts is largely dominated with the Jewish story, and quite rightly so, in that the Jews were the largest single victim group. However, I'm intrigued by the experience of other minority groups and I would fully recommend this one as a great place to start for anyone s