Hans Massaquoi, left, and Robert Steinback, at FIU's Annual MLK Breakfast.

A conversation with Hans Massaquoi

Hans J. Massaquoi, author of Destined to Witness: Growing up Black in Nazi Germany, gave the keynote address at Florida International University’s 11th Annual Reverend Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. Commemorative Breakfast on January 18, 2002. Massaquoi is a journalist and was the managing editor of Ebony magazine, where he spent 39 years.

Massaquoi, the son of a German mother and Liberian father, grew up in Hamburg, Germany in the 1930s under the Nazi regime. He miraculously survived the war and extermination. After immigrating to the United States, he served in the U.S. Army and graduated from the University of Illnois with a degree in journalism and communications.

The following excerpts were taken from a discussion and dialogue between Massaquoi and The Miami Herald columnist Robert Steinback following Massaquoi’s address.

Steinback: How did it happen that you were a black person living in pre-war Germany?

Massaquoi: In the early 1920s, my grandfather, Momolu Massaquoi, was appointed counsel general of Liberia in Hamburg. He took his entire family. Al-Haj, his oldest son, eventually met a German nurse named Bertha, and those two became my parents.

Steinback: Since your father did go back to Liberia, why did it turn out that you were raised in Germany instead of Africa?

Massaquoi: In the early 1930s, my grandfather had aspirations of becoming president of Liberia. He returned to Liberia in order to run for the presidency. He did not succeed. My mother refused to go to Liberia because at that time I was very frail and poor in health. That decision was fateful because we of course did not know at that point about the developments of Hitler coming and so forth.

Steinback: How did it affect you that you basically felt out of touch with your father?

Massaquoi: I was 22 years old when I met him again so all that time I was without a father. However, the German educational system provides strong father figures in teachers and uncles. Since many Germans were eager to take on the role of uncle, I always had some males in my life that made me not miss my father. Some of my classmates even adopted me. Ironically, one neighbor was the top Nazi in the neighborhood, and I walked in and out of the house and there was no problem. I was his son’s best friend.

Steinback: You were a young black boy in Germany at that point and caught up in the whole rise of the Nazi party until someone sort of tapped you on the shoulder and said, “You are not part of the party.” What does that tell you about the impressionability of young people?

Massaquoi: The Hitler youth movement had a tremendous appeal to all the kids of my age. Everybody wanted to wear a uniform and walk around with fanfare and beat the drums. It was sort of like the Scouts going on hikes and that sort of thing.

Steinback: Now Hitler was probably, with the exception of (Martin Luther) King, the greatest motivator of people in the 20th century. He did it for evil purposes. King, on the other hand, was probably the greatest motivator of people for positive purposes. You saw both at close range. Is it easier for evil to rally people than for good to rally people?

Massaquoi: I don’t think so. In addition to being evil, Hitler had power on his side. He could enforce his will, and his will would be done because he was a dictator and had the power. Dr. King had to persuade and talk to people and appeal to reason and compassion. Hitler didn’t have to do that. Once he was established, he dictated and told us what to do.

Steinback: There were a lot of people in Germany who saw what was happening … who understood the evil that was being put forth and did nothing. What do you think about that?

Massaquoi: Hitler had the clout. People knew that opposing Hitler would mean certain death. If you stood in the street and said, “We’re disobeying,” that would be the end of you. Many did not even know about camps in which people were killed, 10,000 a day. I mean killing factories. Many learned about that after the war.

Steinback: I think there is a very interesting lesson for South Florida or parallels to Cuba, where there’s a lot of people on the island of Cuba who probably just learn how to go along to get along. The best way to handle the situation is simply not to raise a fuss and so the regime continues to go on. The concept of Uncle Tom, to use your definition, is a black person who shows too much of an obsequious behavior to white people and yet you lived around them, worked with them. Is it a fair thing to say that to someone, if someone has learned to interact with a different group of people from his own ethnically? Is a term like Uncle Tom even fair?

Massaquoi: Not in my case, I totally rejected that I did not have to “Tom” in order to do my daily work with white people. I just did my job; I did not have to be obsequious to get along. I just did my job, and I would get into someone’s face just as quickly if someone offended me.

Steinback: The time you were in Germany you built up this very positive idea of what the United States stood for and represented. However, you also witnessed American style racism, which was very different from what happened in Germany but was also not the same as what you anticipated. How did you react to that and how did it change you?

Massaquoi: I was not naïve about what was going on racially in this country. Black soldiers and sailors in Hamburg had already filled me in on what was going on in this country. To me, the United States at the time when I left Germany with an empty stomach, the United States represented three meals a day, a job, perhaps a chance to advance—to do something with my life. That is what America meant to me. However, I was always made aware, early in my life that this country was not all ok.

Steinback: Why did that not dampen your enthusiasm for the West knowing that maybe things wouldn’t even be better for you here and not knowing how much better things would be once you got here?

Massaquoi: I always looked at it this way, in Germany I was just one of a few blacks. All my racial battles I had to fight myself. I figured that by coming to the United States, I would have at least 25 million brothers and sisters, and I liked those odds.

Steinback: Here you were in a situation where the odds were that basically, a whole country was against you. In many ways that probably was the worst odds you could imagine, but you kept finding a way. How do you take that lesson and give it to young people?

Massaquoi: I think that the only way you can do it is by example. I have tried to do that with my sons. One is a doctor and one is an engineer. That’s why it’s so tragic when children grow up in a home where there are no examples, no role models, and no access to role models. There is no one to tell them they can do it because they don’t see anyone do it in the family.

Steinback: What made you finally decide to write this book?

Massaquoi: I had some friends who knew about my background. One of them was a very good friend, the late Alex Hailey. We were excellent friends; he kept bugging me, “You’ve got to write this book,” especially after Roots became a best seller, the greatest best seller ever. He said, “Look, now you can write a book,” and I said, ‘OK,’ I’ll write a book. In no chronological order, anything that popped in my mind I would jot it down and put it in a folder, and gradually the folder started getting thicker and thicker. To my amazement, the minute I started, the ideas started flowing out of my brain—all the memories came back. I was able to, in a relatively short time, put it together and I had a book.

Steinback: Has anyone from Hollywood contacted you about the film rights?

Massaquoi: Yes, one day I received a call from Whoopie Goldberg. She said, “I’ve just read your book and I’ve got to make the movie,” so she has acquired the rights to make the movie. At the same time, a German moviemaker also acquired the right to do the same thing in Germany.

Steinback: This has been my honor to sit with Hans J. Massaquoi, and this is a great piece of writing. I hope that you will take the opportunity to read it if you haven’t already.