Witness History: Being Black in Nazi Germany

Listen Now

Broadcaster

BBC

TX Date

24th Sep 2019

Presenter

Caroline Wyatt

Producer

Kristine Pommert

Quotes

"Wonderful story, wonderful interviewee and beautifully presented."

Kirsty Reid, Editor, Witness History

Theodor Wonja Michael, born in 1925 in Berlin as the son of a “colonial migrant” father from Cameroon and a German mother, was still at primary school when Hitler came to power in 1933.

Orphaned young, he faced discrimination and worse in the racist climate of the Nazi era. But as he tells Caroline Wyatt, he survived by keeping his head down – and by working as an extra in propaganda films designed to show the superiority of the German white race.

You should also check

Nelufar Hedayat explores the astonishing events of Christmas 1914, when British and German soldiers put down their weapons and exchanged simple gifts, and what they mean today - for the children and grandchildren of those who took part, and for youngsters hearing the story for the first time.

2014

Christmas Truce

Faith and Spirituality, History

At the end of WW2 much of Germany's capital had been destroyed. A million Berliners were homeless. Women played a huge part in clearing the rubble to make the city habitable.

2018