The Last Forgotten Victims? Black Lives in Nazi Germany

Join us virtually for our annual commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day as we hear from Dr. Robbie Aitken, professor at Sheffield Hallam University, as he discusses the concept of ‘forgotten victims,’ which looks at the experiences of Germany’s Black resident community. Dr. Aitken’s research suggests that there was a genocidal intent in Nazi policy towards Black people, which while not systematically implemented, had a devastating effect on Black lives. The talk will also consider why their stories are missing from public and academic knowledge of the Nazi period as well as more recent attempts to make these life stories visible.

This event is in partnership with the Jack Buncher Chair in Jewish Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Department of Social Sciences at Chatham University.

This is a virtual event. Registration is free and donation is optional. Click here to register. A link will be made available closer to the date of the event.

Professor Robbie Aitken is an Historian of Black Europe and Empire at Sheffield Hallam University. He has written widely on the development of a Black community in Germany from the 1880s up to 1945. His publications include Black Germany, the Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884-1960, (with Eve Rosenhaft). Currently he is working on the Black experience of Nazi Germany as well as post-war compensation claims made by Black victims of the Holocaust.

He has worked with a wide range of non-academic audiences such as schools, museums, artists, film directors, and community groups, and has been involved in several public exhibition and memorial projects in Berlin as well as developing and staging his own travelling exhibition ‘Black Germany’, which has been shown in the UK, Germany, and Cameroon.