YESTERYEAR



What became of Black, Asian and Arab people in Nazi-occupied Europe during the second world war? BLACK people were virtually non-existent in Europe. France had a small population of Africans, mostly active in the entertainment field but, before the German invasion, most returned to the French-African territories from which they had come. While the Germans espoused their Aryan master-race theories, they had to be careful not to offend Asians, as the Japanese were their allies. A small number of Indians were recruited from prisoner-of-war camps to form an Indian brigade fighting the British. As for Arabs, the Germans courted a faction of Palestinians in the hope of instigating an uprising against the British. The head of Palestinian Muslims, known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, lived in Berlin during the war and incited Arabs to rise support the Germans. Peter Terry, Bridgehampton, NY, US. PETER TERRY is not completely accurate in his assessment of the plight of black people in Nazi-occupied Europe - at least with regard to Africans. Not all escaped in time, and those presenting a political threat were liquidated immediately. The Chadian nationalist, Tiemoho Kouyate, was executed in Paris by the gestapo in 1940. Film buffs will want to look at Joseph Goebbels 1943 production of "The Adventures of Baron Von Munchhausen". This film, made as Russian troops advanced on Berlin, boasts 17 actors of African descent in a single scene. Your earlier correspondent also neglected to mention the part African soldiers played in the defence of Vichy-controlled Lebanon (June-July 1941). Etienne Ofori, Camden Lock Online. PETER TERRY is wrong in saying that Indian soldiers from prisoner-of-war camps in Europe were recruited to form an Indian Brigade to fight the Allies. It was in another theatre of war - South East Asia - that some Indian PoWs were prevailed upon by Subhas Chandra Bose - one of the most popular political leaders of Indian freedom movement - to desert their units after the fall of Singapore and join the so-called Indian National Army. They marched with the Japanese army and were annihilated in the battle of Kohima. However, most Indian soldiers preferred to remain loyal to their regiments and suffered imprisonment. In Europe, the Indian prisoners of war suffered the same fate as their British and American counterparts. Capt. Narendra Phanse (retired), Elstree, Herts (narendra.phanse@clara.net) CAPTAIN PHANSE oversimplifies rather. Subhas Chandra Bose went first to Nazi Germany in 1941, where he did recruit a small number of Indian PoWs as the Free Indian Legion. The Indian National Army in South-east Asia was first raised by captured Indian officers and nationalists in exile in Japan. However, they soon fell out with the Japanese and Bose was sent to take over, leaving the Indian Legion behind. The legionaries spent a peaceful war in the south of France until the Liberation, when they were brought back to Berlin. The Nazis made them mess with a handful of British PoWs who had been persuaded to go over to the German side by the British Fascist John Amery. At the fall of Berlin, the Indian Legionaries offered their services to the Russians, who then handed them over to the British. None of this answers the original question, as the Nazis were always opportunists, and had no problem accepting the services of Untermenschen while maintaining their racist principles. At least one African-American, working in Europe as an entertainer while the US was neutral, died in a German concentration camp, partly due to the racism of US diplomats. John Wilson, London NW3. EVEN BEFORE the second world war, which is where most people locate the Holocaust and Hitler's extermination of the Jews, there was an active programme to eliminate black people from Germany in the name of eugenic purity. The Germans reacted very badly to the use by the French of African forces in 1918 and in the occupation of the Rhineland in 1923: childen of black-white unions were officially referred to as "Rhineland bastards" and sterilised, under the guidance of Wolfgang Abel of the Emperor William Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetic Research and Eugenics in Berlin. This programme also targeted gypsies, homosexuals, "professional criminals" and people with disabilities. There was, because of the German part of the inheritance, no systematic extermination of the "Rhineland bastards" themselves, as far as I can gather. (Dr.) Mark R D Johnson, University of Warwick (erraa@snow.csv.warwick.ac.uk) THERE WERE Africans from Germany's former colonies such as Cameroon during the Nazi period. Also a number of mixed-race children were born during the occupation of the Rhineland by French troops after the first world war. About 40,000 black French soldiers are believed to have been based in Germany. In 1927, the commissioners for the Palatinate informed the Imperial Bureau of Health that considerable cause for concern would arise as these black children matured. He enquired whether it was possible to render them infertile. By 1937, 400 mandatory sterilisations of African-Germans had been recorded. Some black people were used for propaganda purposes and others were engaged in films such as Hans Albers' Quax In Africa or Water For Canitoga. Several died in concentration camps but those who survived were excluded from compensation payments. However, the Swiss Embassy in London recently stated that black people who were victims of Nazi persecution may be eligible to benefit from the Special Fund for Victims of the Holocaust approved in February this year by the Swiss Federal Council. David Sparks, Race Equality Consultant, London E6. AFRICANS presenting a political threat were liquidated immediately. The Chadian nationalist, Tiemoho Kouyate, was executed in Paris by the Gestapo in 1940. Etienne Ofori, Camden, London. THIS QUESTION is the subject of a TV documentary we are making for Channel Four, for broadcast later this year. Eddie Oyortey, Afro-Wisdom Films, London W1. MILITARY expediency forced some strange twists in Nazi armed-forces recruitment. Professor A J Gregor, in his book, The Ideology of Fascism, noted that by 1945 the "aryan" Waffen SS was among the most multi-racial armies in history, having within its ranks black Africans and Americans, Arabs, Indians, North Africans, central Asians and whole divisions of Slavic Russians and Poles. Even more bizarre is a reference in the 1984 book, The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Begin, which claims that in 1941 a fringe element of the Jewish Irgun in Palestine made an approach to the German Embassy in Turkey, offering to form a pro-German SS unit. Dave Merrett, Canberra, Australia. IN MAY 1944 all the Chinese in Hamburg were rounded up and transported first to the KZ Fuhlsbuettel and then to a labour camp. Viola Braunburg, Hamburg, Germany. The Sabac el Cher brothers, Herbert and Horst Sabac el Cher ("mulattoes"), both served in Hitler's armed forces. Horst was a medic who went MIA during the long battle of Stalingrad and was never found; Herbert was briefly enrolled in the Volkssturm. However, due to his age and poor health, Herbert was dismissed from Volkssturm duty and survived the war. One of the brothers even had a son during the Reich years: Axel Sabac el Cher, born circa 1942 in Germany. V. K. Clark, Los Angeles USA



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