Hitler's Black Victims: The Historical Experiences of European Blacks, Africans and African Americans During the Nazi Era

The Nazi era in Germany and all of its accompanying atrocities is one of the most documented periods in history. However, this documentation is incomplete in one important area: the history and experiences of people of African descent in Nazi Germany. Did Afro-Germans and other blacks suffer under Nazism? The answer to this question, to the degree it has been asked at all, remains vague even for those scholars and researchers familiar with the Nazi era and the Holocaust in particular. Drawing on interviews with the Black survivors of Nazi concentration camps and archival research in North America, Europe, and Africa, this book documents and analyzes the meaning of Nazism's racial policies towards people of African descent, specifically those born in Germany, France, England, the United States or Africa, and the impact of that legacy on contemporary race relations in Germany, and more generally, in Europe. The book also specifically addresses the concerns of those surviving Afro-Germans who were victims ofNazism, but have not generally been included in or benefited from the compensation agreements that have been developed in recent years.

Clarence Lusane is Assistant Professor at the School of International Service, American University. He is also a journalist whose work has appeared in publications like The Chicago Tribune, The Miami Herald, The Progressive, Colorlines, Race and Class, The Washington Post, and The Black Scholar