Destined to Witness

by Hans Massaquoi

  Easily succeeding in breaking whatever speed record the captain had set the previous day, the lieutenant kept flooring the accelerator of the weapons carrier. “Sorry I was a bit in a rush,” the lieutenant apologized as he stopped in front of the Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof. “I hope I didn’t scare you guys with my driving.”

  We assured the lieutenant that we liked nothing better than a fast ride, and then entered the crowded station. Our unexpected eviction from the army post had made us gun shy and seriously diminished our enthusiasm for passing ourselves off as Americans. So instead of honoring the waiting hall reserved for Allied personnel with our presence, as had been our habit, we went to the German waiting hall instead. Dilapidated and bereft of any amenities, this hall was packed with weary German travelers with battered suitcases and knapsacks. Many were munching on homemade sandwiches that they must have brought along since there were no food vendors anywhere within sight. We were almost hungry enough to swallow our pride and ask a German to let us have a couple of sandwiches in exchange for some cigarettes. But instead, we lighted up ourselves to appease our growling stomachs. We immediately became the target of envious, if not hateful, stares from people who obviously felt that affluent Americans had no business in “their” waiting hall.

  They weren’t the only ones who felt that way. Two black MPs in white helmets and white belts had entered the waiting hall and headed straight for us. “Can you read English?” one of the MPs accosted me with an air of sarcasm. When I didn’t quite get what he was driving at, he repeated his question, “Can you read English?”

  “Of course I can read English,” I finally replied, more annoyed than frightened by his interrogation. After all, I hadn’t done anything wrong—for a change.

  “Then read that,” he ordered while pointing a mean-looking nightstick toward a large sign on the wall. The sign read, OFF LIMITS TO ALL ALLIED PERSONNEL.

  Before I could follow my inclination and respond with a flippant “So what?” the MP good-naturedly told us to stop giving him and his buddy a hard time and to take our you-know-whats to the Allied waiting room on the other side of the station where we belonged. He said he couldn’t understand why we wanted to stay in this “dump” and hang out with the Krauts.

  Werner and I couldn’t either, for that matter, and within minutes we were enjoying—quite illegally—the generous hospitality of Uncle Sam in the waiting hall’s comfortable USO canteen. There we ate delicious, freshly made hotcakes and sipped aromatic coffee served by friendly USO ladies who went out of their way to make “our boys” feel at home in what seemed to be the only waiting room where we weren’t bothered by pesky MPs. Only this time, the sign on the wall read USO—NUR FÜR ALLIIERTES PERSONAL (USO—FOR ALLIED PERSONNEL ONLY).

  After we had dined sufficiently and caught up on our hygiene in the men’s room, we decided to go for a walk and take a look at Nuremberg before returning to Hamburg.

  As we walked through the bomb-ravaged streets of Nuremberg, I was reminded of the significant, though largely negative, role the city had played in my life. It was at the 1935 Nazi convention in Nuremberg, billed ironically as the “Party Day of Freedom,” that the legal groundwork for the pogroms against Jews and other so-called non-Aryans like me was laid. Known as the Nuremberg Laws, the enacted measures stripped Jews and other persons of “non-German blood” of their German citizenship, while forbidding them to marry Aryans or have sexual relations with them.

  Thanks to film director Leni Riefenstahl, whose documentaries captured much of the drama, Nuremberg, the official city of the Nazi Party, stood out in my memory more than any other German city, including Berlin, as the quintessential Nazi showpiece where each year, for an entire week, the Party staged an orgy of self-congratulation with spectacular mass rallies, pro-Hitler demonstrations, and endless marches that lasted into the wee hours of the night. Through the creativeness of Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and wartime munitions chief, the nightly scenes were further enhanced by the dramatic placement of searchlights that formed what some described as a “cathedral of lights.”

  I wondered how many hundreds of downtrodden people who were passing us in the streets had been among the fanatically screaming throngs who had cheered their beloved Führer on to ever-greater excesses until they had convinced him that he could take on the entire world. I looked hard into the faces of the men and women to see if I could detect some remnants of the old Nazi arrogance, that air of assumed racial superiority. But neither their faces nor their demeanor gave clues to their infamous recent past. All I saw in their bland expressions was resignation, an unquestioning acceptance of the status quo.

  It was only fitting, I felt, that the Allies had selected Nuremberg as the site of the Nazi war-crimes trials that had just concluded a few months earlier. Twelve Nazi reprobates were sentenced to death by hanging, including (in absentia) Martin Bormann, Hitler’s chancellery chief. He was rumored to have fled to Argentina, but his remains were found in Berlin decades later, supporting the theory that he killed himself in May 1945. Göring also cheated the hangman by swallowing a cyanide pill, which, it was rumored, his wife had passed to him with her goodbye kiss. As in the case of Hitler’s death, there were no public expressions of sorrow—and probably no private ones either. Ex-Nazis and Nazi sympathizers kept their mouths shut out of fear of calling attention to themselves, while “ordinary” Germans said “Gott sei Dank (Thank God),” for want of a German equivalent for “good riddance.”

  It was late afternoon by the time Werner and I felt we had seen enough of Nuremberg and decided to return to the Hauptbahnhof. On our way, we ran into three black GIs, who wanted to know what we were doing in civilian clothes. “We’re merchant marines sightseeing in Bavaria,” explained Werner, without seeming to arouse suspicion.

  “You guys are welcome to come to a dance at our barracks tonight,” one of the GIs offered.

  We were in no particular hurry to get back to Hamburg, and sensing new adventure, we accepted the invitation.

  The GIs were stationed in Nuremberg’s former SS Kaserne, a complex of massive three-story brick barracks that not too long ago had housed a division of Hitler’s military elite. Except for the missing swastika, which had been chiseled from the wreath in the claws of the giant stone eagle emblem above the entrance gate, the barracks seemed untouched by the war.

  Expecting to be asked to leave at any moment, Werner and I were on a constant alert for inquisitive MPs or other military officials who might object to our presence. But everyone treated us like long-lost brothers. The only hitch came when we were about to enter the auditorium for the dance and an officious soldier seated behind a table at the door stopped Werner to ask, “You sure you’re colored?”

  Without hesitating for even a split second, blond and blue-eyed Werner indignantly replied, “What do you think?”

  The soldier shrugged apologetically and let Werner pass.

  The huge hall was jam-packed with hundreds of black GIs and their German dates. Never in my life had I seen so many blacks. And what a wide range of complexions, from white to deep ebony and all the shades in between.

  When the dance band, consisting of a dozen or so black GIs, blasted off and the tenor saxman stepped to the mike and effortlessly improvised incredibly intricate variations of the tune’s main theme, my pride in my own musicianship was literally blown away. Grudgingly, I had to admit to myself that I would never be that good and that eventually I needed to look for some other kind of work.

  It was quite apparent from the choreographed-looking jitterbug acrobatics put on display by the fräuleins and their black GI partners that they had had plenty of practice. Watching the rapturous expressions on the young women’s perspiring faces as they “jived” to what the Nazis had always derided as Negermusik, I was sure that if the Führer hadn’t blown out his brains, the mere sight of his cherished Deutsche Mädchen with the “apelike creatures” would have killed him.

  The band struck up a stirring, upbeat tune that
I had heard for the first time some ten years before during the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. At the first strains of the tune, all the GIs came to attention, and Werner and I followed their example. One of the soldiers had stepped up to the microphone and in a rich baritone sang the words, which, although I didn’t fully understand at the time, I listened to with deep-felt reverence, especially the final “…o’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.” Never did the idea of becoming an American citizen one day appeal to me more than at that moment.

  The dance came to an end and the GIs and their fräuleins filed out of the auditorium. Since we were dead tired, we gladly accepted when one of our new GI friends suggested that we spend the night in the barracks, and we followed him to another floor. Stopping at a door, he told us that two of his buddies were asleep inside but would be going on duty in an hour or so. Motioning us to be quiet, he opened the door and, without turning on the light, steered us toward two empty bunks. “I’ll be back for you in the morning,” he promised. Werner and I were too tired to let the loud snoring of the two GIs bother us and were soon fast asleep. By the time I awakened, it was daylight and the two GIs were gone. Werner was still sleeping peacefully in the next bunk.

  Lazily, my squinting eyes swept across the room to take inventory. There were several neatly made bunks, a small table flanked by four chairs and several wall lockers. When my eyes beheld the lockers, they did a double take. Perched on top of each was a white helmet liner, and each helmet liner displayed in large black type the familiar and much-feared letters MP. Along one wall, neatly aligned on hooks, was a row of white belts with empty white pistol holsters. This could mean only one thing—the GIs we had befriended the previous day were off-duty military cops.

  As soon as the full impact of my discovery had hit me, I woke up Werner with the news that we had been sleeping in the lion’s den. Within seconds we were fully dressed and, after a brief facial bath in the washroom next door, we briskly walked along the endless corridors, down several flights of stairs, and out of the swastikaless gate. Only after the Kaserne was completely out of sight did we dare to run. When we reached Nuremberg’s Hauptbahnhof, we were tempted to pay another visit to the Allied personnel waiting room, but thought better of it when we learned that a train to Hamburg was leaving momentarily.

  Without the benefit of Donald’s company, we were obliged to ride in the train’s no-frills German car, instead of the Allied car to whose sumptuous amenities we had so easily become accustomed. “Where are the MPs when we need them?” I wondered, hoping that an MP patrol would make the rounds and send us to the Allied train where we felt we belonged. But no such luck. The only official who made the rounds was an old, grumpy-looking German conductor who checked all passengers but us, obviously assuming that we were Allied personnel and entitled to a free ride.

  After a long and eventless train journey, during most of which Werner and I caught up on some sorely needed sleep, we returned to Hamburg.

  WERNER LEAVES FOR AMERICA

  Shortly after our Nuremberg adventure, in the spring of 1947, Werner surprised me with an extraordinary bit of news. After literally years of futilely petitioning the U.S. government for repatriation, he had finally received a favorable response from Washington.

  “The Germans won’t have to put up with Yankee Werner much longer.” He grinned, showing me a letter from the U.S. State Department stating that an examination of his submitted documents had fully established his claim to U.S. citizenship and that travel arrangements from Bremerhaven to New York City at U.S. government expense were being processed. If all went well, the letter said, he could be on his way to the United States within the next three months. He was also advised that he would shortly receive notification from the U.S. Consulate General in Hamburg to pick up his U.S. passport.

  Werner’s good news triggered a welter of emotions in me. While I was happy for him to be so close to the fulfillment of his—no, our—dream, I dreaded seeing him leave, since we had become almost inseparable. We had known each other barely a year and a half, but to me it seemed as if we had been friends for a lifetime. I had always fantasized that one day we would somehow embark on our journey to the United States together. I had played the role of the black American stuck in Germany for so long and with so much conviction that I had somehow convinced myself that I had a right to be repatriated to the U.S. like Werner. Werner’s good news had been a reality check. It drove home to me the fact that I had only been playing charades, that I had not only been fooling other people but myself as well, and that I was no nearer to being admitted to the United States than the day I first met Werner and he planted in me the idea of seeking my fortune in the United States.

  I had difficulty concealing my disappointment over the discouraging fact that my own dream of one day going to the United States was just that, a dream, with nothing to justify my expectation that it would ever come true. It occurred to me that for Werner, the charade of impersonating an American that had been the total content of our postwar life had suddenly come to an end. With a U.S. passport in his pocket, he no longer had to pretend to be an American citizen; he was an American citizen. He now could go into any Allied service club or movie theater, and board any Allied train without having to look over his shoulder for U.S. or British MPs. By simply claiming his birthright, he could now—delight of delights—plant his feet in true Yankee fashion on any seat in front of him without having to apologize to anyone.

  Under no circumstances did I want Werner to think that I was jealous of his good fortune, although I had to admit to myself that I would have preferred if the State Department had delayed his return just a little longer. Luckily, Werner was too preoccupied with his newfound happiness to notice my halfhearted response to the news.

  Fortunately for all involved, my mind was soon taken off Werner when Yue called me to get ready for another two-month-long British Army Welfare Service tour of central Germany. It spared me lengthy goodbyes and the impossible task of pretending that I was truly happy that Werner was sailing for the U.S. By the time I returned to Hamburg, Werner had left and, according to his first letter to me, had safely arrived in New York City, which, he explained in glowing terms, exceeded all of his expectations.

  Werner’s departure was, if nothing else, a wake-up call for me. I suddenly realized that if I were ever going to get out of Germany, I had to stop dreaming and playing games and instead start doing. Since, unlike Werner, I had no legitimate claim to U.S. citizenship, I decided that I had to play the cards that fate had dealt me. Under no circumstances was I ready to resign myself to being stuck in dead-end Germany for the rest of my life.

  Ever since the war ended, I had tried to establish contact with my father in Liberia. Since at that time regular postal traffic between Germany and Liberia had not yet been resumed, I had given my letters—addressed for want of an address to “Mr. Al-Haj Massaquoi, Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa”—to British soldier friends with the request to mail them for me through the British postal system. In the letters I explained that my mother and I had survived the war, that I was making a living as a musician, but that we were still facing many serious problems and were eager to leave Germany. When I hadn’t received a reply after more than half a year of anxious waiting, I almost gave up hope of ever again hearing from my father.

  Since with Werner’s departure my dream of a future in America had evaporated, I decided to give writing to my father another try. With the help of my friends Ralph and Egon Giordano, who were beginning to make names for themselves as budding young journalists and who let me use their battered manual typewriter, I pecked out a dozen or so letters to my father. This time I requested to have my letters forwarded by the International Red Cross, the United Nations Relief Agency (UNRA), and several consulates in Hamburg, including that of the United States.

  I also resumed writing to my cousin Martha, the daughter of my aunt Clara in Barrington, Illinois, and to my cousin Ilse, the daughter of Uncle Paul in Chicago. I
wrote both that my mother and I wanted to come to America and asked for their help.

  Unsurprisingly, I didn’t hear from my father, but after a few weeks I received letters from Martha and Ilse. Martha’s letter was positive. She told me that as soon as she and her mother received my letter, they had gone to a lawyer to see what could be done to get us to come to the States. Unfortunately, the lawyer explained to them that the main obstacle to our coming was the fact that no formal peace treaty had as yet been signed with Germany, and that as a result, it was still subject to Allied military law. Consequently, Germany did not have a U.S. immigration quota. Without such a quota, he had told them, immigration by German nationals was impossible. Martha ended her letter on an optimistic note, writing that her mother would not give up trying to get us to come and had already scheduled a meeting with her congressman on our behalf.

  The letter from Ilse was quite different. Unlike the usual chatty tone that characterized her previous letters to me, she merely offered a few polite platitudes about being glad to have heard from me again. At the bottom of her letter, Uncle Paul had written a few remarks whose gist was “Dear nephew, whatever you do, under no circumstances come to Chicago.” The reason was to spare me disappointment, he explained, since I, like most Germans, seemed to labor under the misconception that the United States was the land of milk and honey when, in fact, Americans had to work extremely hard for what they owned and also that many things, including certain foods, were still scarce. Therefore, he concluded, my mother and I would be much better off staying where we were and sticking it out until things got better.

  When my mother read her brother’s note, she was seething with rage and disappointment at her sibling, whom she had always loved from the bottom of her heart. “Here we are starving and often don’t know where our next meal is supposed to come from,” she fumed, “and this dear brother of mine has the nerve to tell us not to come to his precious America because people in America have to work hard for what they own and because certain foods are still scarce. I don’t recall ever having written him that we expect not to work.” She became even angrier upon receiving her sister Clara’s letter, which explained that the real reason Uncle Paul didn’t want us to show up in Chicago was that “he was afraid his sister and her black son would be an embarrassment to him in his all-white community.” Paul, according to Aunt Clara, had married a woman from the South following the death of his first, German-born wife, the mother of his children, and was seemingly acting under her racist influence.