Tag Archives: holocaust

centenarians

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A couple of days ago I found the (written) interviews with centenarians on one of my favorite blogs (which wordpress refuses to let me link to right now, but on my blogroll it’s lickystickypickyme.) I was intrigued, so I dug around the interweb for some more interesting 100-plus-year-olds and came up with the videos.  I just love them.

Touching interviews with centenarians, about their look on their long lives:(clockwise) Alice Herz-Sommer, 108 I survived the concentration camps, and this is something extraordinary. Thousands and millions that had to die, and we are sitting here. When we are old, we are aware of the beauty of life. Young people take everything for granted. It all depends on the character you’re born with. Everything I forget. Even if I write it down, I forget to look. I had an excellent memory and now, I’m an idiot! [Laughs] What do I do against it? I learn Bach by heart and play the piano. My son died aged 64. He was a gifted musician, and a wonderful son. My only child. Nellie Wright, 103 I don’t get by, I exist from one day to the other. I’m hoping for the end to come. I’m tired of it. Why should it be like this? Not a penny in my purse! I’ve worked 74 years. Why am I here? I’m waiting for God to straighten this out. I should be home! My husband died while I was in here. I never even got to his funeral. It doesn’t matter. I’ve been a decent girl, never drunk or gone with men. I’ve just lived and worked like a silly fool. Helen Turner, 101 I’m going to live to 120! I had a party and champagne at 100. Actually, I can’t remember much of it, as I’d had a lot to drink. I was engaged once, but I never met… well, I knew what I was looking for and I found it, but too late. He’s a professor. Of course he’s married. And I can’t imagine he’s the sort of person to go off the rails. Not that I wouldn’t want him to. I’m not saying I’m that good! Nora Hardwick, 105 It’s in the genes, I suppose. My mother was 94 and my eldest sister was 96. Granny was 97. I’ve kept my brain active. I read and do crosswords. And I have a little shot of whisky at bedtime. I think that helps. If it wasn’t for my daughters, I’d have to have somebody in every day, but, you see, Maureen has showered me today and Jan’s washed my hair. They keep me clean, that’s the main thing. I’ve treated myself to a little scooter that I can get out on, in the fresh air. I don’t like sitting all day. I take every day as it comes. Each one is a bonus.

Touching interviews with centenarians, about their look on their long lives:
(clockwise)

  1. Alice Herz-Sommer, 108
    I survived the concentration camps, and this is something extraordinary. Thousands and millions that had to die, and we are sitting here. When we are old, we are aware of the beauty of life. Young people take everything for granted. It all depends on the character you’re born with.
    Everything I forget. Even if I write it down, I forget to look. I had an excellent memory and now, I’m an idiot! [Laughs] What do I do against it? I learn Bach by heart and play the piano. My son died aged 64. He was a gifted musician, and a wonderful son. My only child.
  2. Nellie Wright, 103
    I don’t get by, I exist from one day to the other. I’m hoping for the end to come. I’m tired of it. Why should it be like this? Not a penny in my purse! I’ve worked 74 years.
    Why am I here? I’m waiting for God to straighten this out. I should be home! My husband died while I was in here. I never even got to his funeral. It doesn’t matter. I’ve been a decent girl, never drunk or gone with men. I’ve just lived and worked like a silly fool.
  3. Helen Turner, 101
    I’m going to live to 120! I had a party and champagne at 100. Actually, I can’t remember much of it, as I’d had a lot to drink.
    I was engaged once, but I never met… well, I knew what I was looking for and I found it, but too late. He’s a professor. Of course he’s married. And I can’t imagine he’s the sort of person to go off the rails. Not that I wouldn’t want him to. I’m not saying I’m that good!
  4. Nora Hardwick, 105
    It’s in the genes, I suppose. My mother was 94 and my eldest sister was 96. Granny was 97. I’ve kept my brain active. I read and do crosswords. And I have a little shot of whisky at bedtime. I think that helps.
    If it wasn’t for my daughters, I’d have to have somebody in every day, but, you see, Maureen has showered me today and Jan’s washed my hair. They keep me clean, that’s the main thing. I’ve treated myself to a little scooter that I can get out on, in the fresh air. I don’t like sitting all day. I take every day as it comes. Each one is a bonus.

brown babies

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I’ve been meaning to post more about these AfroGerman children since blogging about  the holocaust memorial last month.  This post is mostly a reblog from MochaJuden.com.  As someone who has a hard time embracing my German heritage (none of which is “afro”), I find myself fascinated by this piece of our history.  I would love to track down some of these “brown babies” and interview them about their experiences in Germany and in the U.S.  The Black German Cultural Society website is definitely worth checking out.  So many resources, so much information.  I have a feeling I’ll be touching on this topic again…. and again.

Germany’s Brown Babies

Many of our constituents are children who were born to German mothers who were abandoned by African American soldiers during the U. S. Occupation following World War II. While some remained in Germany, many were raised in orphanages or with foster families; a few remained with their natural mothers. Many were offered for International Adoption to African American Families and accepted into the US under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (amended June 16, 1950) , where it was assumed that they would “more easily assimilate into the culture.”

This result is a generation of culturally displaced persons who remain disconnected and alienated from the mainstream of the societies in which they lived and from both ethnic communities to which they belong.

Adoption is a wonderful concept and is generally accepted as an ideal social mechanism for improving lives and circumstances for abandoned or orphaned children. However, recent psychological and sociological research has determined that these children often suffer significant lifelong emotional and social problems such as identity deficits, separation and attachment disorders, and chronic depression, as well as other problems as a result of separation trauma and what has been identified as “the primal wound.”

The issue is magnified and the outlook becomes ever more complicated when we explore the international adoption and abandonment of interracial children who were created by opposing forces following a major global war. For the most part, there was no professional follow up in terms of the physical, social and emotional well being of these children once they were placed.

Historians in the last decade have begun to study and write publications about the Brown Baby Plan and the cooperative attempt between the two governments to place and provide for these unwanted and displaced children. Autobiographical Interviews and publications have given voice to the trauma and lifelong suffering stemming from the dramatic loss of identity and heritage and the cultural alienation that these children faced, particularly while growing up both in post war Germany and in the US during the Civil Rights era, a period when intense racism and discrimination was under scrutiny and identified as a major problem in both societies.

“We struggled through childhoods filled with confusion, fear, anger, and feelings of inferior self-esteem. Navigated adolescence in extreme conformity to perceived structures of authority, in order to redeem our existence, or in defiance to them in utter rebellion. Adulthood was either accomplished successfully by integrating the powerful nuances of our diversified selves, or postponed until safety could be found in the distanced wisdom of experience. Some of us didn’t make it. Some of us are just now coming of age.” ~ Rebecca, Black German Cultural Society.

American Homes For Germany’s Brown Babies Are Scarce – Jet Mag, May 15, 1952

Tan Tots Attend German Schools – Jet Magazine, July 24, 1952

Brotherly Love – Jet Magazine, December 18, 1952

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German Brown Babies Arrive in US – Jet Magazine, January 29, 1953

Brown Babies Become Americanized – Jet Magazine, May 21, 1953

Brown Babies Find New Homes In America – Jet Mag, Oct 8, 1953

all photos found at: Vieilles_annonces of Flickr

offspring of a foreign race

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I have never before thought of mulattoes as victims of the Holocaust.  How ignorant of me.  I now imagine that some of the children fathered by black U.S. servicemen made up the group mentioned in this Delaware memorial.  So much history to uncover.

Interfaith Yom HaShoah service to
remember victims of the Holocaust

The third community interfaith worship service for Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, will be at 4 p.m., Sunday, April 11, at Epworth United Methodist Church, 19285 Holland Glade Road, Rehoboth Beach.

For the past two years, clergy from six faith communities in the Lewes-Rehoboth area have joined to lead a worship service for the community that remembers the tragic events and honors the victims and heroes of the Holocaust.

Shoah is the Hebrew word for “whirlwind.” It is the term used to describe the Nazi firestorm between 1938 and 1945 that swept up 11 million souls – 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews including Poles, Rom Gypsies, homosexuals, disabled, mulatto children, clergy and Germans who didn’t believe in the Nazi ideology.

Men and women, young and old alike, were butchered at the hands of the Nazis. Every year, on Yom HaShoah, people remember the martyrs who sanctified the name of God in the camps, ghettos and gas chambers.   Entire article

I looked into the situation further and came across this paragraph on studyofracialism.org:

African German mulatto children were marginalized in German society, isolated socially and economically, and not allowed to attend university. Racial discrimination prohibited them from seeking most jobs, including service in the military. With the Nazi rise to power they became a target of racial and population policy. By 1937, the Gestapo (German secret state police) had secretly rounded up and forcibly sterilized many of them. Some were subjected to medical experiments; others mysteriously “disappeared.”

Here’s insight into Hitler’s had to say about us (found HERE):

MULATTO CHILDREN

Before World War 1 there weren’t very many Black people in Germany. During ww1, France brought Black soldiers in during France’s occupation of Germany. Since there were different colored people living in Germany, the Nazis forcibly sterilized offspring between black men and white women because it held back the campaign for the perfect race. Children that had a black father and a white mother were mulatto children because of their color. Mostly every German despised them and called them ugly names. Hitler wrote,” These mulatto children came through rape or their mother was a whore. In both cases there is not the slightest moral duty regarding these offspring of a foreign race.” This is what happened to children because of the color of their skin.

Black German girl 1930

Nazi propaganda photo depicts friendship between an “Aryan” and a black woman. The caption states: “The result! A loss of racial pride.” Germany, prewar.