My Mother, A Nazi?: Chronicles of a Multicultural Upbringing

By Carine Mansilla

Author of various books, Carine Mansilla invites us here to a fabulous journey through time and space, especially through a surprising and touching story of an unprecedented love, an unlikely marriage that took place at a time when, in history, in Nazi Germany, especially in times of war, was unimaginable, if not impossible, the union between a young German woman from the Hitler Youth movements and a black French soldier.
A family story full of dignity and deference, written in a striking and vairé style, with simple and eloquent words, strong images... A story that the author tells us, in her own way, in the form of "Chronicles of a Multicultural Upbringing". A book to read absolutely and recommend...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312533219

Book preview

DEDICATION

This book is in memory of my parents and my nuclear and extended family, many of whom have now gone to be with the Lord.

I also dedicate this book to the memory of Mrs. Janie Wood, my elderly friend, this elegant lady I met at church. I visited her several times after she fell sick, and she took pleasure listening, commenting, and encouraging me when I read the very first parts of the book to her. I cherish these memories. RIP.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

I NORTH AND SOUTH

II NATIONAL ANTHEMS

III CREME-DE-LA-CREME

IV A STRANGE LAND, A HAVEN OF PEACE

V NEITHER BLACK, NOR WHITE… METIS!

VI THE TRAUMA OF COLONIZATION

VII ABOUT IVOIRITE

VIII ABOUT CITIZENSHIP

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FOREWORD

"Memories are the key not to the past,

but to the future."

Corrie Ten Boom

One of the most notable occurrences of late has been Covid-19, which has affected the world as we had known it before, at least in the twentieth century and first two decades of the twenty-first century.

It has become even more important to complete this book as world events continue to unfold, many of which are addressed here: the notion of race and diversity, the need for a more inclusive world, war, institutionalized racism during colonial times, the consequences of colonialism, and other topics which are determinants of our world’s progress and destiny.

This work does not intend to substitute expert work in any field. The contents are based on my experience, observations, and research. It is very important for the reader, while reading this book, to keep in mind that the interpretation of some situations or events may not always reflect the views of others.

I don’t intend to prove some right or wrong, it is an honest sharing of my life. For this reason, the reader is invited to do their own research to make up informed and balanced judgements.

I have great respect for the past. If you do not know where you come from, you don’t know where you are going.

Maya Angelou

The idea of writing this book occurred to me when, one day, it suddenly dawned on me—wait a minute, was my mother a Nazi?

I had to write!

This is the story of an unlikely marriage. Unlikely because little at that time in history could have facilitated the union of a black French soldier and a young woman who was a former member of the Hitler Youth.

This is the story of an incredible journey in time and space. This journey took my mother from Nazi Germany all the way to Africa in the middle of the twentieth century.

It is the story of a man, my father, who left his native Africa, went on war for the colonists, then married a woman from the country his army had fought and vanquished, and who then returned to live in Africa with her.

It is a story of resilience, of love, and of many compromises. It was already unimaginable for a former Hitler Youth member to fall in love with a black soldier in times of war. It was even more unlikely for her to leave her country and family to become a wife and mother in Africa.

It was as improbable for my father, a former French soldier, to marry a German woman and stay married to her for the rest of his life.

Because the turn of my parents’ lives was so improbable, at least at such a time, their story must be told.

I must admit that the idea of the book was very much welcomed by those I shared it with, until I revealed its title close to the end of writing: My Mother was a Nazi!.

Whoa! This is so shocking! There is such a negative connotation to this word that you may want to consider changing the title. Which I did. The title now relates the surprising character of this reality, with its many uncertainties.

It’s a hard truth to come to terms with, especially as my mother and her family never claimed to have adhered to, participated in, or even known of, the inhumane principles and practices of Nazism as a school of thoughts which led to such horrific crimes.

A lot of the horrors perpetrated where kept secret to many, if not most, of its members who formed the base of the pyramid. Most, if not all, human organizations are hierarchical. Those on the bottom of the organization do not have the same access to, and knowledge of, information as those at the top. I would like to urge the reader to keep this in mind when reading this book.

This is in no way an attempt to defend or excuse the horrors of war—all wars—and the inhumane nature of Nazism, to say the least. There is no account that can justify the injustices perpetrated, not to mention the useless human sufferings and losses that so many undergo in times of war, and even more so during the two greatest wars of the twentieth century, known as the First and Second World Wars.

When I was a teenager, the television series Holocaust in 1978 opened my eyes to the horrors of this gruesome episode of human history. This is when I started asking questions to my mother:

– Mom, what happened when neighbors disappeared from the neighborhood, never to be seen again?

– We did not know what happened to them; we were told that they were moving to other locations, nothing more. We did not know.

May we find in our hearts the strength and the will to forgive, as Eva Mozes Kor advises: Here in Auschwitz, I hope in some small way to send the world, a message of forgiveness, a message of peace, a message of hope, a message of healing… Anger is a seed for war. Forgiveness is a seed for peace… I want time on this earth to count for something¹.

With the cancel culture² that has risen in the past few years, whereby it is almost impossible to share an opinion, a piece of information, or a fact without being retributed by those who disagree, my hope is that the stories and the thoughts shared in this book will be received with open-mindedness.

It is humanly impossible for everyone to agree, but if we cannot agree, let us disagree in a humane way. Let us agree to disagree. We live in a time where boundaries seem to never stop narrowing, thanks to—or because of—the world wide web.

Yet the walls of divisions are growing higher and higher and the bridges to peace, narrower and narrower.

May this book be a conversation starter among people of different origins, creeds, and social networks. May it be a wall-breaker and a bridge-builder. It is a tribute to all victims of racial, tribal, and religious prejudice, and all other sorts of prejudice, all over the world.

I would like to close this Foreword with the words of Martin Luther King: Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be – this is the interrelated structure of reality.

Carine Mansilla

MY MOTHER,

A NAZI!?...

I

NORTH AND SOUTH

"Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner,

for you were foreigners in Egypt."³

My mother,⁴ Hedwige Florence Gouverneur was born in 1927 in Petite-Rosselle, Moselle, shortly before the Great Depression.

The department of Moselle is located at the French-German border in the northeast of France and southwest of Germany.

Due to intermittent wars between Germany and France, which took place over centuries, the ownership of the Moselle region was tossed back and forth between the two countries.

As a result, at the time of my maternal grandfather’s birth, the city was annexed to Germany until 1918.

Conversely, when my mother was born in 1927, Moselle was under French control and remained so until Nazi Germany annexed it again in 1935. This situation possibly explains why my grandfather’s patronym was unequivocally French, even though he hardly knew a French word.

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1. An excerpt of my mother’s birth certificate (in French).

With all this historic back and forth, my mother was born of German parents on French territory, which made her French by birth. However, my mother never claimed her French nationality at that time. She held the German citizenship like her parents, but, when she married, she claimed her French nationality, perhaps in solidarity with her husband, who was a French citizen. Most likely, however, she had to forsake her German nationality after marrying a foreigner, according to the law in force at the time.

My mother was twelve years old when World War II broke out. Her father, Josef, my grandfather, was a coal miner from the Saarland region⁵ in southwestern Germany.

Josef, my grandfather and Lucie (or Lucia), his wife and my grandmother, were raising Maman and her brother in a tight-knit family environment.

Opa⁶ Josef had nine siblings, and Oma Lucie had seven, enough to create indelible family bonds that cross over generations. I haven’t been able to gather information on the reasons that took my grandparents to France and back to Germany. They were in Germany when the war started, and they remained there until the end of their lives.

My parents were generally very private, and although they loved to reminisce on their individual heritage, there was a hint of privacy around some aspects of their lives, which I will continue to respect.

For example, I never knew exactly how my parents met. How was it possible for two people, whose lives were so unlikely to cross at that time in history, to meet, fall in love, and wed? What made it possible for my father, a French black soldier who set foot in Germany during French occupation, to cross paths with a young German lady in her late teens or early twenties?

As a younger person, I did not deem it necessary to find out more about the whys of past events that seemed so remote to me. Sometimes, I wish I had been more prompting, and I wish I had been more persistent when I asked questions and did not get straight answers. I also wish I had started writing this memoir while my parents were still alive although I was only eighteen when my father passed.

As it certainly happens in most war times, during French occupation in Germany, the locals and soldiers came across each other in everyday activities. This was not unusual, but the race difference between my parents, at such a time, was what made their encounter more striking than others.

According to my sister Patricia, it has been said that locals had suffered from an extended period of rationing and would sometimes benefit from the generosity of French soldiers who would occasionally share their resources with them. Others acted out of curiosity toward those on the other side of the fence and would stroll around the premises of the French camp just to catch sight of the soldiers.

However, I find it useful to mention that my sister Freddy later provided a more accurate version of the way my parents met. While she was a student in France, it had become her habit to travel to Germany during vacation time to stay with Oma. During these precious times spent with our grandmother, she learned that at some point in time, my mother’s brother and cousin were nowhere to be found. Therefore, my mother and her cousin Erika often went near the French camp trying to investigate on the whereabouts of their respective brothers. One day, my mother took her courage and informed the soldiers that they were looking for their brothers who had been missing for some time.

A few days later, the soldiers returned to inform my mother and her cousin that their brothers were alive and well. Among the soldiers was… my father. This, by my grandmother’s account through my sister, was the true way how my father and mother met. When my uncle and his cousin were freed, the family maintained the connection with my father, which ended up in his union with my mother.

It is interesting to also mention that my mother knew some level of French because she had spent time on summer camps in France on several occasions. This is why she was able to communicate with the French soldiers.

• • • • •

Opa, my mother’s father, was one of ten siblings, and as family legend has it, he was a descendant of a French noble family whose last name was de Gouverneur (with the French noble particle de, which indicates the noble status of the bearer).

After years of being tossed between Germany and France, the noble particle de of the family name was translated into German to become "von" Gouverneur.

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My father with my maternal grandparents, year unknown.

My mother recounted that the family name lost its noble particle along the way because of a relative who had sold it off several generations before for a small amount of money to satisfy an urgent need.

During his active years, my maternal grandfather worked in the coal mines of Saarland, and he continued to work as a coal miner until he retired. I remember my mother saying that as a miner he had to retire at a relatively early age because of the potential harm this occupation could have on the workers in the long run.

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Opa, as I came to know my maternal grandfather, was a very handy man who enjoyed long walks