The website“Forgotten Biographies – Migrants and Black People under National Socialism” commemorates extraordinary lives: Turkish-Jewish and Arab people,
African colonial migrants and
and Black Germans who lived and worked in Germany during the National Socialist era, were discriminated against and disenfranchised, resisted or fell victim to National Socialist persecution.
The selection of the biographies presented on the website as well as the extensive research work for the project were carried out together with young people from the award-winning youth culture project “Forgotten Biographies”. The exhibition resulting from the project, which is extremely worth seeing, can be borrowed here.
“There were about 500 Turkish Jews living in Berlin before World War II, most of whom were deported and murdered. Across Europe, the numbers amount to more than 20,000. Her Turkish origin initially protected her from attacks by the Nazis. For black people, too, their respective origins could be important for survival. It was directly related to the Nazis’ foreign policy strategy. This strategy initially protected some.
With the turn of the war and the change in foreign policy in 1942, the persecution intensified massively. They lost their protection. They lost their rights, were subjected to arbitrariness and calculated racial discrimination, and were persecuted. It is estimated that several thousand Black people perished in the concentration camps. Many Afro-German children were sterilized in an illegal secret operation. Few of these lives even made it to the public. Many fates remain unresolved to this day, and the life stories of women seem almost invisible. Of many of these people, not even a picture exists. Often only a name remains. These are ‘forgotten biographies’.” Project description on Forgotten Biographies