Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany

From Publishers Weekly In a unique addition to the literature of life under the Third Reich, Massaquoi, a former managing editor of Ebony magazine, chronicles his life as the son of a German nurse and Al-Haj Massaquoi, the son of the Liberian consul general to Germany. Soon after his birth in Hamburg in 1926, the author's father returned to Liberia to bolster his family's failing stature in national politics, leaving his wife and son to grapple with everyday life amid the rise of fascism in Germany. The Reich's racial politics were so steadfastly drummed into German schoolchildren that the young Hans quickly acquired an anti-Semitic outlook only to realize that he was also subject to discrimination as a non-Aryan. He sought intellectual escape from German nationalism through reading books by Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle and James Fenimore Cooper; in his idealization of African-American athletes Joe Lewis and Jesse Owens; and by learning how to play jazz and his involvement with the "swingboys" officially condemned as purveyors of "degenerate" music and dance. Massaquoi and his mother survived both Nazi rule and the devastating 1943 British bombing of Hamburg. He tells of life after the war, of befriending black American soldiers, of moving to Liberia in 1948 and of his subsequent move to America in 1950, where he came to feel that racism was as prevalent as it had been under the Third Reich. Thoughtful and well written, Massaquoi's memoir adds nuance to our comprehension of 20th-century political and personal experience. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Massaquoi, the retired managing editor of Ebony, presents an unusual perspective on the Nazi era. The son of an "Aryan" mother and an African diplomat, he grew up in Germany on the wrong side of Nazi racial ideology, confronting not only the bigotry of his countrymen but the danger of Allied bombs on a nearly daily basis. Even after his postwar immigration to the United States and service with the U.S. Army in Korea, the author sees his life as one of witness to racial inequality. His journey from Nazi Germany to the post-Civil Rights United States makes for interesting reading, recounted with an eye for detail and a humanity that is appealing. Although there were many individuals like Massaquoi, few took the path he did, and probably few could write about it with such force. Recommended for public and academic libraries.AFrederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Massaquoi, a man of mixed racial heritage, survived 12 years of Nazi terror in Germany during World War II. The son of a German mother and a Liberian father, he grew up in a country that became progressively obsessed with racial purity, where Massaquoi was unable to escape racist taunts and hostilities. He recalls his early, naive acceptance and even admiration of Hitler, even in the face of creeping racial animosities, primarly aimed at Jews but slowly encompassing other non-Aryan people as well. By adolescence, embittered by his perpetual outsider status, Massaquoi had come to grips with the reality of his situation and that of his mother. Through sports figures Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, Massaquoi attached his racial identity to that of black Americans and became obsessed with coming to the U.S. After the war, he settled temporarily in Liberia with his father's family before journeying to the U.S. and eventually becoming a reporter with Ebony magazine. Massaquoi's background and experiences provide incredible context to this personal story of overcoming racism. Vanessa Bush From Kirkus Reviews Massaquoi, of mixed African-German parentage, came of age in Nazi Germany; he depicts the trauma of his childhood, and his improbable survival of it, in a nuanced, startling memoir. As a small boy, Massaquoi was fascinated and moved by Hitler and seduced by Nazi busywork and organized pageantry. Thus he felt exceptionally betrayed upon realizing that there was no place for a non-Aryan such as himself in the Reich. Although his devoted mutti protected him fiercely (his father had returned to Liberia), he encountered virulent abuse at school and was dehumanized by the Nuremburg Laws, which essentially barred him from public life, whether from a playground or from the Hitlerjugend, which all his chums joined. Things became much worse during the war years, when, perversely, he repeatedly escaped the worst fate by a hairbreadth. This included nearly being discovered race mixing by the SS and surviving the protracted fire bombing that leveled his beloved Hamburg. Massaquois unique, pathos-filled childhood in extremis is rendered superlatively, as is his portrait of a prewar Germany giddily embarked on its own destruction; he keenly perceives both the nefarious ambiguity and the human tragedy inherent in this civic embrace of evil. Also, his depiction of postwar anguish, and his own emergence as a hipster black-marketer befriended by cynical, reefer-smoking black GIs among whom he was thrilled to pass, is highly engaging. Less so, however, are the instances when his narrative turns soft or vaguely contemplative; the interesting tale of his eventual repatriation to Liberia to meet his volatile, powerful father is necessarily less profound than earlier chapters. Massaquoi later immigrated to the US; a journalist, he was managing editor of Ebony magazine. Although the bizarre singularity of the child Massaquois plight is central to the work, it is the journalist Massaquois close eye for the subtleties of personal and social behavior, as well as a rather daring digressive structural and prose style, that makes this unusual tale both substantiative and memorable. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Hans J. Massaquoi emigrated to the United States in the early 1950s. He served in the U.S. Army and then became a journalist for Johnson Publishing, where he was managing editor of Ebony magazine. He was an active participant in the civil rights movement. The father of two sons, Hans lives with his wife, Katherine, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Read more