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Readings from selected works by
Hans Massaquoi
Author
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| Massaquoi was born in 1926 in
Hamburg, Germany. His mother, Bertha, was a German nurse, and his father
was the son of a former African tribal king who was Liberia's first consul
general in Germany. They never married. While Massaquoi was
still an infant, his father returned to Liberia, leaving Massaquoi and
his mother to fend for themselves. Massaquoi was one of just a handful
of blacks living in Germany at that time. His African features made
him standout, but he said his classmates and teachers accepted him ...
at least early on. Massaquoi's childhood became filled with more restrictions
and rejections as Nazi ideology became more entrenched in German society.
But Massaquoi said he and his mother could not leave the country because
they were too poor to travel. With no other blacks to identify with,
Massaquoi developed a fascination with Nazism, especially with a group
known as the Hitler Youth. After the war ended he left Germany for Liberia,
where he lived with his father, Al-Haj Massaquoi, for two years. After
his father's death, Massaquoi immigrated to the United States.
Hans Massaquoi is the retired managing
editor of Ebony magazine, a post that
gave him access to statesmen, civil rights leaders and celebrities for
more than 30 years. But when it came time to write his autobiography, Massaquoi
chose not to focus on his decades of success in the United States. Instead,
in "Destined to Witness", Massaquoi tells what it was like to grow up black
in Nazi Germany.
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Tuesday
April 10,
2002
7:30 p.m.
New York Room
Mary Woolley Hall
Mount Holyoke College