Thread by @blackrepublican

Black People and the Holocaust

First they came for Africa, Namibians, and, I said nothing because I was not an African nor a Namibian.

And, then they came for the Jews.

#HolocaustRemembranceDay

The African Holocaust

“Decades before the Nazis turned to the Jews, German colonialists in Southwest Africa - now #Namibia - slaughtered tens of thousands of tribespeople in a systematic genocide.”

“... [During] the Second Reich, rapid multimillion-person population loss and the tearfully destitute conditions propelling the outflow, were devastating to the German national identity. A concept arose: Volk ohne Raum, that is, “a people without space.”

timesofisrael.com/in-germanys-ex…

“Africa, with its wide-open spaces rugged, romantic beauty,had long beckoned white Europe. By the early 1880s, imperialists in England, Belgium, Portugal, France, other countries were planning or had inaugurated colonies throughout the African continent.”

“Many were incomprehensibly brutal and exploitative regimes. Kaiser Wilhelm feared Germany would be shut out of Africa and its resources, including gold.”

Read more: “In Germany’s extermination program for black Africans, a template for the Holocaust”

timesofisrael.com/in-germanys-ex…

Scholars commonly say the #Armenian genocide of 1914–1915, perpetrated by the Turks, was the first genocide of the twentieth century.

That is wrong.

The first deliberate effort to exterminate an entire group was by the Germans in Africa, 1904–1908.

“Jews were dispatched to concentration camps across Europe in cattle cars. These trains were dubbed Transport. For Germany, the process had happened once before — in Southwest Africa, to expedite the transfer of un-killed Hereros to be worked to death.”

In Germany's extermination program for black Africans, a template for the Holocaust | The Times of Israel timesofisrael.com/in-germanys-ex…

Colonial genocide in Namibia | DW Interview"

First they came for the Namibians, and, I said nothing because I was not a Namibian.

And, then they came for me.

Germany to return human remains from the Namibian genocide of Herero and Nama people Germanys Black Holocaust

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

“Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.”

Amos 5:23-24