Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany [Hardcover]

Ika Hugel-Marshall (Author), Elizabeth Gaffney (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2001

"In March 1947 I was born. My arrival was celebrated within the inner family circle, quietly and anxiously. When I was a year old, my mother married a white German man; a year later my sister was born. We grew up relatively unburdened during those first five years, just like most children. We felt we were a family, even though I knew that my father was not my real father. I had no reason to doubt that with my white mother, in my white family, in my white hometown, I could grow up and be happy".

So begins the story of Ika Hugel-Marshall, daughter of an African American serviceman who left Germany for America the day after learning that had impregnated the German woman with whom he was having an affair.

When Hugel-Marshall was seven, the state intervened in her happy family life, recommending that she, like other "occupation children", be placed in an orphanage. Here, she was subjected to the daily tyrannies of her caretaker, Sister Hildegard. She struggled to come to terms with life as a German -- the only life she knew -- among people who seemed bent on disavowing her existence.

Not until she was in her late thirties did she meet other "Afro-Germans" who as children had shared fates similar to her own and who encouraged her to seek out and meet her biological father. In 1993, with the support of friends, she set out on a journey from Berlin to Chicago's South Side to discover a past -- and a family -- she had never known.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 158 pages
• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826412947
• ISBN-13: 978-0826412942
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #535,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Searching for identity, October 31, 2002

By 

hella e. langer (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany (Hardcover)

I read this book in the original German edition and thus don't know how well the English edition conveys this example of a very 'German' post-war destiny. Ika was a "Besatzungskind" - a very negative and subjective term for a child born to a German mother and a (most commonly) G.I. father from the "occupation forces". Her story is just one of a whole babyboomer generation of both white,and mixed-race children, and what a sad story it is, particulary of those little "Black Germans"! Ika's coerced removal from her mother and placement into a Christian institution was a common occurance for 'illegitimate' children of any description. The mothers of Black children were seen as nothing more than whores who were not fit to raise the children they should not have had in the first place. The racially motivated mental and physical abuse that Ika endured makes for painful reading - particularly since the abuse was carried out (as it often is)in the name of Christ and for her salvation. That Ika managed to grow up into the strong, beautiful person she is today is a testimony to her strength of character and indomitable spirit. I was so happy for her that she did manage to find her father and come to terms with her struggle over identity. With the growth in recent years of Afro-German organisations I hope that many more stories like Ika's will be published. They will give voice to that previously invisible 'Stolen Generation' who now, in middle-age are finally given a change to come to terms with their unique history and identity.
Postscript: As a white contemporary of Ika's I had many class/playmates who were black, with family backgrounds similar to hers. Certainly the Catholic institution (Jugenddorf Klinge in Seckach/Baden) were I spent some years, was not guilty of evil such as experienced by Ika. For a long time now I have wondered about the subsequent fates of my special friend Monika and the other girls I knew.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Searching for identity, October 31, 2002

By 

hella e. langer (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany (Hardcover)

I read this book in the original German edition and thus don't know how well the English edition conveys this example of a very "German" post-war destiny. Ika was a 'Besatzungskind' a very negative and subjective term for a child born to a German mother and (most commonly) a G.I. father of the "occupation forces". Her story is just one of a whole babyboomer generation of both white, and mixed-race children - and what a sad story it is, particulary of those little "Black Germans"! Ika's coerced removal from her mother and placement into a Christian institution was a common occurance for 'illegitimate' children of any description. The mothers of Black children were seen as nothing more than whores who were not fit to raise the children they should not have had in the first place. The racially motivated mental and physical abuse that Ika endured makes for painful reading - particularly since the abuse was carried out (as it often was) in the name of Christ and for her salvation. That Ika grew strong, beautiful she is today is a testimony to her strength of character and indomitable spirit. I was so happy for her that she did manage to find her father and come to terms with her struggle over identity. With the growth in recent years of Afro-German associations I hope that many more stories like Ika's will be published. They will give voice to that previously invisible 'Stolen Generation' who now, in middle-age are finally given a change to come to terms with their unique identity.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Home Underway: Growing Up Black in Germany, July 5, 2001

By 

JB (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Invisible Woman: Growing Up Black in Germany (Hardcover)

Soon after I began reading Ms Marshall's book I experienced a thrill of recognition. In the brutally honest account of her child and early adulthood in Germany, her stories of recognizing and overcoming her internalized racial self-hatred, I remembered and re-lived some of my own similar experiences growing up as a light-skinned, adopted black child in the black community in Baltimore Maryland.

Ms. Marshall's harsh treatment at the hands of the staff at the home she was sent to as a child sheds light on the brutal and uncaring treatment many children, especially children of color, still experience today. Her writing is both personal and informative (she quotes several government documents of her childhood that "institutionalized" the racist treatment of Afro-Germans) and draws the reader into her story so that one cannot help but become caught up with her as she tells it. I found it difficult to put it down.

That she survived such a childhood and has become both a strong woman and outspoken opponent of racism in Germany, is a testement to her inner power and strength, as well as to the love she received from her mother before she was taken from her at the age of six years old.

Ms. Marshall is still fighting the demons of racism in a country that carries its nationalism in it's breast pocket, as it were. It's not that bad in the US of A...yet.